SHAKSPEARE  and  HIS  TIMES, 


BY   M.    GUIZOT. 


NEW    YORK: 

HARPER   &   BROTHERS,   PUBLISHERS 

329  &  331  PEARL  STREET, 

FRANKLIN  SQUARE. 


k 


//.&   ^SJC 


PREFACE. 


The  Essay  on  the  Life  and  "Works  of  Shakspeare,  which 
I  reprint  in  the  present  volume,  appeared  for  the  first  time 
as  an  Introduction  to  the  French  edition  of  Shakspeare's 
complete  works,  which  was  published  at  Paris  in  1821. 
This  edition  was  based  upon  the  translation  of  Shakspeare's 
plays  which  was  commenced  in  1776  by  Le  Tourneur,  and 
which,  at  that  period,  gave  rise  to  such  animated  disputes 
in  the  literary  world,  and  especially  in  the  Correspondence 
of  Voltaire  and  of  La  Harpe.  In  1821  I  undertook  to  edit 
this  translation  of  Shakspeare's  principal  works,  and  I  re- 
vised six  tragedies,  ten  historical  dramas,  and  three  com- 
edies. M.  De  Barante  kindly  assisted  me  by  translating 
"  Hamlet ;"  and  M.  Amedee  Pichot,  who  is  so  thoroughly 
acquainted  with  England  and  English  literature,  under- 
took to  revise  all  the  remaining  plays. 

Since  that  period  other  translations  of  Shakspeare,  both 
partial  and  complete,  in  prose  and  in  verse,  have  been  pub- 
lished. Whatever  their  merit  may  be,  they  have  not  been 
successful ;  and  no  one  will  ever  succeed,  except  imper- 
fectly, in  transfusing  into  our  language,  with  their  true 
character  and  full  effect,  the  works  of  this  prodigious  ge- 
nius. This  arises  not  only  from  the  fact  that  every  trans- 
lation must  necessarily  be  imperfect  and  insufficient,  but 
also  on  account  of  the  particular  turn  of  Shakspeare's  mind 
and  style,  as  well  as  that  of  his  national  tongue.  Shaks- 
peare is  excellent  in  substance,  but  deficient  in  form ;  he 


Iv  PREFACE. 

discerns,  and  "brings  admirably  into  view,  the  instincts, 
passions,  ideas — indeed,  all  the  inner  life  of  man ;  he  is 
the  most  profound  and  most  dramatic  of  moralists ;  but 
he  makes  his  personages  speak  a  language  which  is  often 
fastidious,  strange,  excessive,  and  destitute  of  moderation 
and  naturalness.  And  the  English  language  is  singularly 
propitious  to  the  defects,  as  well  as  to  the  beauties,  of 
Shakspeare ;  it  is  rich,  energetic,  passionate,  abundant, 
striking ;  it  readily  admits  the  lofty  flights,  and  even  the 
wild  excesses,  of  the  poetic  imagination ;  but  it  does  not 
possess  that  elegant  sobriety,  that  severe  and  delicate  pre- 
cision, that  moderation  in  expression  and  harmony  in  im- 
agery, which  constitute  the  peculiar  merit  of  the  French 
language  ;  so  that,  when  Shakspeare  passes  from  England 
into  France,  if  he  is  translated  with  scrupulous  fidelity, 
his  defects  become  more  apparent,  and  more  offensive,  be- 
neath his  new  dress,  than  they  were  in  his  native  form ; 
and  if,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  attempted  to  adapt  his  lan- 
guage, even  in  the  slightest  degree,  to  the  genius  of  our 
tongue,  he  is  inevitably  robbed  of  a  great  part  of  his  wealth, 
force,  and  originality.  A  literal  translation  and  a  free  ren- 
dering do  wrong  to  Shakspeare  in  a  different  manner,  but 
in  an  equal  degree.  When  he  is  translated,  or  when  he  is 
read  in  a  translation,  it  must  never  be  forgotten  that  he 
labors  under  one  or  other  of  these  disadvantages. 

In  continuation  of  the  Essay  on  the  Life  and  Works  of 
Shakspeare,  I  have  published,  in  this  volume,  a  series  of 
Notices  of  his  principal  dramas,  and  an  Essay  on  Othellc 
and  Dramatic  Art  in  France  in  1830,  which  the  Duke  Do 
Broglie  inserted,  at  that  period,  in  the  "Revue  Francaise," 
and  which  he  has  kindly  allowed  me  to  include  in  this 
volume.  Those  Essays  constitute,  in  some  sort,  proofs  in 
support  of  the  ideas  which,  in  1821,  I  endeavored  to  de« 


PREFACE.  7 

velop  regarding  the  nature  of  dramatic  art  in  general,  and 
the  particular  and  diversified  forms  which  it  has  assumed 
among  those  nations  and  in  those  ages  in  which  it  has 
shone  with  greatest  brilliancy  :  an  art  so  powerful  and  at- 
tractive, that,  in  all  times  and  at  all  places,  in  the  period 
of  its  infancy  as  well  as  in  that  of  its  maturity — of  its 
glory  as  well  as  of  its  decline — it  has  ever  remained  in- 
vincibly popular,  and  has  never  ceased  to  charm  all  men 
aither  by  its  master-pieces  or  by  its  sparkling  bluettes. 

Guizot. 

Paris,  June  10,  1852. 


CONTENTS, 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES 9 

SHAKSPEARE'S  TRAGEDIES : 

•""""  Romeo  and  Jdliet i 161 

/Hamlet 174 

/Kino  Lear 185 

Macbeth 192 

Julius  Cesar 208 

^Othello 216 

SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE 228 

SHAKSPE ARE'S  HISTORICAL  DRAMAS 295 

Kino  John 29? 

King  Richard  II.. 304 

King  Henry  IV 312 

King  Henry  V 320 

King  Henry  VI 322 

King  Richard  III. 334 

King  Henry  VIII 340 

SHAKSPEARE'S  COMEDIES: 

The  Merchant  op  Venice 343 

The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor 348 

/The  Tempest 354 


SHAKSPEARE  AN 


Voltaire  was  the  first  person  in  France  who  spoke  of 
Shakspeare's  genius ;  and  although  he  spoke  of  him  mere- 
ly as  a  harbarian  genius,  the  French  public  were  of  opin- 
ion that  Voltaire  had  said  too  much  in  his  favor.  Indeed, 
they  thought  it  nothing  less  than  profanation  to  apply  the 
words  genius  and  glory  to  dramas  which  they  considered 
as  crude  as  they  were  coarse. 

At  the  present  day,  all  controversy  regarding  Shaks- 
peare's genius  and  glory  has  come  to  an  end.  No  one 
ventures  any  longer  to  dispute  them ;  but  a  greater  ques- 
tion has  arisen,  namely,  whether  Shakspeare's  dramatic 
system  is  not  far  superior  to  that  of  Voltaire. 

This  question  I  do  not  presume  to  decide.  I  merely 
say  that  it  is  now  open  for  discussion.  We  have  been  led 
to  it  by  the  onward  progress  of  ideas.  I  shall  endeavor 
to  point  out  the  causes  which  have  brought  it  about ;  but 
at  present  I  insist  merely  upon  the  fact  itself,  and  deduce 
from  it  one  simple  consequence,  that  literary  criticism  has 
changed  its  ground,  and  can  no  longer  remain  restricted 
to  the  limits  within  which  it  was  formerly  confined. 

Literature  does  not  escape  from  the  revolutions  of  the 
human  mind  ;  it  is  compelled  to  follow  it  in  its  course — 
to  transport  itself  beneath  the  horizon  under  which  it  is 
conveyed  ;  to  gain  elevation  and  extension  with  the  ideas 


10  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

which  occupy  its  notice,  and  to  consider  the  questions 
which  it  discusses  under  the  new  aspects  and  novel  cir- 
cumstances in  which  they  are  placed  by  the  new  state  of 
thought  and  of  society. 

My  readers  will  not,  therefore,  be  surprised  that,  in  or- 
der properly  to  appreciate  Shakspeare,  I  find  it  necessary 
to  make  some  preliminary  researches  into  the  nature  of 
dramatic  poetry  and  the  civilization  of  modern  peoples, 
especially  of  England.  If  we  did  not  begin  with  these 
general  considerations,  it  would  be  impossible  to  keep  pace 
with  the  confused,  perhaps,  but  active  and  urgent  ideas, 
which  such  a  subject  originates  in  all  minds. 

A  theatrical  performance  is  a  popular  festival ;  that  it 
should  be  so  is  required  by  the  very  nature  of  dramatic 
poetry.  Its  power  rests  upon  the  effects  of  sympathy — 
of  that  mysterious  force  which  causes  laughter  to  beget 
laughter ;  which  bids  tears  to  flow  at  the  sight  of  tears, 
and  which,  in  spite  of  the  diversity  of  dispositions,  condi- 
tions, and  characters,  produces  the  same  impression  on  all 
upon  whom  it  simultaneously  acts.  For  the  proper  de- 
velopment of  these  effects,  a  crowd  must  be  assembled  ; 
those  ideas  and  feelings  which  would  pass  languidly  from 
one  man  to  another,  traverse  the  serried  ranks  of  a  mul- 
titude with  the  rapidity  of  lightning  ;  and  it  is  only  when 
large  masses  of  men  are  collected  together  that  we  ob- 
serve the  action  of  that  moral  electricity  which  the  dra- 
matic poet  calls  into  such  powerful  operation. 

Dramatic  poetry,  therefore,  could  originate  only  among 
the  people.  At  its  birth  it  was  destined  to  promote  their 
pleasures ;  in  their  festivities  it  once  performed  an  active 
part ;  and  with  the  first  songs  of  Thespis  the  chorus  of  the 
spectators  invariably  united. 

But  the  people  are  not  slow  to  perceive  that  the  pleas* 


SHAKSPEARE   AND  HIS  TIMES.  11 

ures  with  which  they  can  supply  themselves  are  neither 
the  best,  nor  the  only  pleasures  which  they  are  capable  of 
enjoying.  To  those  classes  which  spend  their  days  in  toil, 
complete  repose  seems  to  be  the  first  and  almost  the  sole 
condition  of  pleasure.  A  momentary  suspension  of  the 
efforts  or  privations  of  daily  life,  an  interval  of  movement 
and  liberty,  a  relative  abundance  ;  this  is  all  that  the  peo- 
ple seek  to  derive  from  those  festivities  which  they  are  able 
to  provide  for  themselves — these  are  all  the  enjoyments 
which  it  is  in  their  power  to  procure.  And  yet  these  men 
are  born  to  experience  nobler  and  keener  delights  ;  they 
are  possessed  of  faculties  which  the  monotony  of  their  ex- 
istence has  allowed  to  lie  dormant  in  inactivity.  If  these 
faculties  be  awakened  by  a  powerful  voice  ;  if  an  anima- 
ted nar.  ative,  or  a  stirring  scene  stimulate  these  drowsy 
imaginations,  these  torpid  sensibilities,  they  will  gain  an 
activity  which  they  could  never  have  imparted  to  them- 
selves, but  which  they  will  rejoice  to  receive ;  and  then 
will  arise,  without  the  co-operation  of  the  multitude,  but 
in  its  presence  and  for  its  amusement,  new  games  and 
new  pleasures  which  will  speedily  become  necessities. 

To  such  festivities  as  these  the  dramatic  poet  invites 
the  assembled  people.  He  undertakes  to  divert  them,  but 
the  amusement  which  he  supplies  is  one  of  which  they 
would  have  been  ignorant  without  his  assistance.  iEs- 
chylus  relates  to  his  fellow-citizens  the  victories  of  Sala- 
mis,  the  anxieties  of  Atossa,  and  the  grief  of  Xerxes.  He 
charms  the  people  of  Athens,  but  it  is  by  raising  them  to 
a  level  with  emotions  and  ideas  which  iEschylus  alone 
could  exalt  to  so  high  a  point ;  and  he  communicates  to 
the  multitude  impressions  which  they  are  capable  of  feel- 
ing, but  which  iEschylus  alone  is  able  to  awaken.  Such 
is  the  nature  of  dramatic  poetry  ;  for  the  people  it  calls  its 


.i  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

creations  into  being,  to  the  people  it  addresses  itself;  but 
it  is  in  order  to  ennoble  their  character,  to  extend  and 
vivify  their  moral  existence,  to  reveal  to  them  faculties 
which  they  unconsciously  possess,  and  to  procure  for  them 
enjoyments  which  they  eagerly  seize,  but  which  they  would 
not  even  seek  after,  if  a  sublime  art  did  not  reveal  to  them 
their  existence  by  making  them  minister  to  their  gratifi- 
cation. 

And  this  work  the  dramatic  poet  must  necessarily  pur- 
sue ;  he  must  elevate  and  civilize,  as  it  were,  the  crowd 
that  he  summons  to  hear  his  performance.     How  can  he 
act  upon  the  assembled  multitude,  except  by  an  appeal  to 
the  most  general  and  elevated  characteristics  of  their  na- 
ture ?     It  is  only  by  going  out  of  the  narrow  circle  of  com- 
mon life  and  individual  interests  that  the  imagination  be- 
comes exalted  and  the  heart  enlarged,  that  pleasures  be- 
come disinterested  and  the  affections  generous,  and  that 
men  can  sympathize  in  those  common  emotions  the  ex- 
pression of  which  causes  the  theatre  to  resound  with  trans- 
ports of  delight.     Religion  has,  therefore,  universally  been 
the  source  and  furnished  the  primitive  materials  of  dra- 
matic art ;  at  its  origin,  it  celebrated,  among  the  Greeks, 
the  adventures  of  Bacchus,  and,  in  Northern  Europe,  the 
mysteries  of  Christ.     This  arises  from  the  fact  that,  of  all 
human  affections,  piety  most  powerfully  unites  men  in 
common   feelings,   because  it  most  thoroughly  detaches 
them  from  themselves  ;  it  is  also  less  dependent  for  its  de- 
velopment upon  the  progress  of  civilization,  as  it  is  pow- 
erful and  pure  even  in  the  most  backward  state  of  society. 
From  its  very  beginning,  dramatic  poetry  has  invoked  the 
aid  of  piety,  because,  of  all  the  sentiments  to  which  it 
could  address  itself,  piety  was  the  noblest  and  the  most 
universal. 


SHAKSPEARE   AND  HIS  TIMES  13 

Originating  thus  among  the  people  and  for  the  people, 
but  destined  to  elevate  them  by  affording  them  delight, 
the  dramatic  art  speedily  became,  in  every  age  and  coun- 
try, and  by  reason  of  this  very  characteristic  of  its  nature, 
the  favorite  pleasure  of  the  superior  classes. 

This  was  its  natural  tendency ;  and  in  this,  also,  it  has 
encountered  its  most  dangerous  quicksands.  More  than 
once,  allowing  itself  to  he  led  astray  by  its  high  fortune, 
dramatic  art  has  lost  or  compromised  its  energy  and  lib- 
erty. "When  the  superior  classes  can  fully  give  themselves 
up  to  their  position,  they  fall  into  the  error  or  misfortune 
of  isolating  themselves  from  their  fellows,  and  ceasing,  as 
it  were,  to  share  in  the  general  nature  of  man,  and  the 
public  interests  of  society.  Those  universal  feelings,  nat- 
ural ideas,  and  simple  relationships  which  constitute  the 
basis  of  humanity  and  of  life,  become  changed  and  ener- 
vated in  a  social  condition  which  consists  entirely  of  ex- 
ceptions and  privileges.  In  such  a  state  of  society,  con- 
ventionalisms take  the  place  of  realities,  and  morals  be- 
come factitious  and  feeble.  Human  destiny  ceases  to  be 
known  under  its  most  salient  and  general  aspects.  It  has 
a  thousand  phases,  it  leads  to  a  host  of  impressions  and 
relations  of  which  the  higher  classes  are  utterly  ignorant, 
unless  they  are  compelled  to  enter  frequently  into  the 
public  atmosphere.  Dramatic  art,  when  devoted  to  their 
pleasure,  finds  its  domain  greatly  diminished  and  impov- 
erished ;  it  is  invaded  by  a  sort  of  monotony  ;  events,  pas- 
sions, characters,  all  those  natural  treasures  which  it  lays 
under  contribution,  no  longer  supply  it  with  the  same 
originality  and  wealth.  Its  independence  is  imperiled  as 
well  as  its  variety  and  energy.  The  habits  of  elegant  so- 
ciety, as  well  as  those  of  the  multitude,  are  characterized 
by  their  littlenesses,  and  it  is  much  more  capable  of  im- 


J  4  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

posing  these  littlenesses  as  laws.  It  is  stimulated  by  tastes 
rather  than  by  necessities ;  it  rarely  introduces  into  its 
pleasures  that  serious  and  ingenuous  disposition  which 
abandons  itself  with  transport  to  the  impressions  which  it 
receives  ;  and  it  very  frequently  treats  genius  as  a  servant 
who  is  bound  to  please  it,  and  not  as  a  power  that  is  ca- 
pable of  governing  it  by  the  enjoyments  which  it  can  sup- 
ply. If  the  dramatic  poet  does  not  possess,  in  the  suf- 
frages of  a  larger  and  more  simple  public,  the  means  of 
defending  himself  against  the  haughty  taste  of  a  select 
coterie — if  he  can  not  arm  himself  with  public  approba- 
tion, and  rely  for  support  upon  the  universal  feelings  which 
he  has  been  able  to  arouse  in  all  hearts — his  liberty  is  lost ; 
the  caprices  which  he  has  attempted  to  satisfy  will  weigh 
upon  him  like  a  chain,  from  which  he  will  be  unable  to 
free  himself;  talent,  which  is  entitled  to  command  all, 
will  find  itself  subject  to  the  minority,  and  he  who  ought 
to  guide  the  taste  of  the  people,  will  become  the  slave  of 
fashion. 

Such,  then,  is  the  nature  of  dramatic  poetry  that,  in  or- 
der to  produce  its  most  magical  effects,  and  to  preserve, 
during  its  growth,  its  liberty  as  well  as  its  wealth,  it  must 
not  separate  from  the  people,  to  whom  its  earliest  efforts 
were  addressed.  It  languishes,  if  it  is  transplanted  from 
the  soil  in  which  it  first  took  root.  Popular  at  its  origin, 
it  must  continue  to  be  national,  and  it  must  not  cease  to 
somprehend  beneath  its  sway,  and  to  charm  with  its  pro- 
ductions, all  classes  that  are  capable  of  experiencing  tho 
emotions  from  which  it  derives  its  power. 

All  ages  of  society,  and  all  states  of  civilization  are  not 
equally  favorable  to  calling  the  people  to  the  aid  of  dra- 
matic poetry,  and  insuring  its  prosperity  under  their  influ- 
ence.    It  was  the  happy  lot  of  Greece  that  tin1  whole  nu 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  15 

tion  grew  and  developed  itself  together  with  literature  and 
the  arts,  keeping  always  on  a  level  with  their  progress, 
and  acting  as  a  competent  judge  of  their  glory.  That 
same  people  of  Athens,  who  had  surrounded  the  chariot 
of  Thespis,  thronged  to  hear  the  master-pieces  of  Sophocles 
and  Euripides  ;  and  the  most  splendid  triumphs  of  genius 
were  always,  in  that  city,  popular  festivals.  So  brilliant 
a  moral  equality  has  not  presided  over  the  destiny  of  mod- 
ern nations  ;  their  civilization,  displaying  itself  upon  a  far 
more  extended  scale,  has  undergone  many  more  vicissi- 
tudes, and  presented  much  less  unity.  During  more  than 
ten  centuries,  nothing  was  easy,  general,  or  simple  in  our 
Europe.  Religion,  liberty,  public  order,  literature — noth- 
ing has  been  developed  among  us  without  long-eontinued 
effort,  in  the  midst  of  incessantly-renewed  struggles,  and 
under  the  most  diversified  influences.  Amid  this  mighty 
and  agitated  chaos,  dramatic  poetry  did  not  possess  the 
privilege  of  an  easy  and  rapid  career.  It  was  not  its  fate 
to  find,  almost  at  its  birth,  a  public  at  once  homogeneous 
and  various,  the  constituent  members  of  which,  both  great 
and  small,  rich  and  poor,  in  fine,  all  classes  of  citizens, 
should  be  equally  eager  for,  and  worthy  of  its  most  brill- 
iant solemnities.  Neither  epochs  of  great  social  disorder 
nor  periods  of  severe  necessity  are  times  in  which  the 
masses  can  devote  themselves  with  enthusiasm  to  the 
pleasures  of  the  stage.  Literature  prospers  only  when  it 
is  so  intimately  united  with  the  tastes,  habits,  and  entire 
existence  of  a  people  as  to  be  regarded  at  once  as  an  oc- 
cupation and  a  festivity,  an  amusement  and  a  necessity. 
Dramatic  poetry,  more  than  any  other  branch  of  literature, 
depends  upon  this  deep-seated  and  general  union  of  the 
arty  with  societ/.  It  is  not  satisfied  with  the  tranquil 
pleasures  of  enlightened  approbation,  but  it  requires  the 


iff  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

quick  impulses  of  passion ;  it  does  not  seek  men  in  leisure 
and  retirement  that  it  may  furnish  agreeable  occupation 
for  their  hours  of  repose,  hut  it  requires  men  to  hasten  and 
throng  around  it.  A  certain  degree  of  mental  development 
and  simplicity,  a  certain  community  of  ideas  and  habits 
between  the  different  classes  of  society,  greater  ardor  than 
fixity  of  imagination,  greater  movement  of  soul  than  of 
existence,  a  strongly-excited  moral  activity  destitute  of 
any  imperious  and  determined  object,  liberty  of  thought 
and  repose  of  life — these  are  the  circumstances  of  which 
dramatic  poetry  has  need,  in  order  to  shine  with  its  full 
splendor.  These  circumstances  never  combined  so  com- 
pletely or  so  harmoniously  among  modern  peoples  as 
among  the  Greeks.  But  wherever  their  leading  charac- 
teristics have  been  found  to  exist,  the  drama  has  become 
elevated  ;  and  neither  have  men  of  genms  been  failing  to 
the  public,  nor  has  the  public  proved  wanting  to  men  of 
genius. 

The  reign  of  Elizabeth,  in  England,  was  one  of  those 
decisive  epochs,  so  laboriously  attained  by  modern  peoples 
which  terminate  the  empire  of  force  and  inaugurate  the 
reign  of  ideas.  Original  and  fruitful  epochs  are  these, 
when  the  nations  flock  to  mental  enjoyments  as  to  a  new 
kind  of  gratification,  and  when  thought  prepares,  in  the 
pleasures  of  youth,  for  the  discharge  of  those  functions 
which  it  will  be  called  upon  to  exercise  at  a  riper  age. 

Scarcely  recovered  from  the  storms  with  which  it  had 
been  ravaged  by  the  alternate  successes  and  reverses  of  the 
Red  and  White  Roses,  before  it  was  again  distracted  and 
exhausted  by  the  capricious  tyranny  of  Henry  VIII.  and 
the  malevolent  despotism  of  Mary,  England  demanded  of 
Elizabeth,  at  her  accession,  nothing  but  order  and  peace ; 
and   this   was  preoisaly  what  Elizabeth  was  most  dis- 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  n 

posed  to  bestow.  Naturally  prudent  and  reserved,  though 
haughty  and  strong-willed,  she  had  been  taught  by  the 
stern  necessities  of  her  youth  never  to  compromise  herself, 
When  upon  the  throne,  she  maintained  her  independence 
by  asking  little  of  her  people,  and  staked  her  policy  upon 
running  no  risks.  Military  glory  could  not  seduce  a  dis- 
trustful woman.  The  sovereignty  of  the  Netherlands,  not- 
withstanding the  efforts  of  the  Dutch  to  induce  her  to  ac- 
cept it,  did  not  tempt  her  wary  ambition.  She  resignedly 
determined  to  make  no  attempt  to  recover  Calais,  or  to  re- 
tain Havre  ;  and  all  her  desires  of  greatness,  as  well  as  all 
the  cares  of  her  government,  were  concentrated  upon  the 
direct  interests  of  the  country  which  she  had  to  restore  to 
repose  and  prosperity. 

Surprised  at  so  novel  a  state  of  things,  the  people  revel- 
ed in  it  with  the  intoxication  of  returning  health.  Civil- 
ization, which  had  been  destroyed  or,  suspended  by  their 
dissensions,  revived  or  progressed  on  every  side.  Indus- 
try brought  wealth  in  its  train,  and  notwithstanding  the 
shackles  imposed  by  the  oppressive  proceedings  of  the 
government,  all  the  historians  and  all  the  documents  of 
this  period  bear  testimony  to  the  rapid  progress  of  popu- 
lar luxury.  The  chronicler  Harrison  informs  us  that  he 
had  heard  many  old  men  express  their  surprise  at  "the 
multitude  of  chimneys  lately  erected,  whereas  in  their 
young  days  there  were  not  above  two  or  three,  if  so  many, 
in  most  uplandish  towns  of  the  realm  (the  religious  houses 
and  manor-places  of  their  lords  always  excepted).  '  Our 
fathers,'  they  said,  '  lay  full  oft  upon  straw  pallets,  on 
rough  mats  covered  only  with  a  sheet,  and  a  good  round 
log  under  their  heads  instead  of  a  bolster  or  pillow ;  and 
if  tho  good  man  of  the  house  had,  within  seven  years 
after  his  marriage,  purchased   a  mattress  or  stock-bed, 


18  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

and  thereto  a  sack  of  chaff  to  rest  his  head  upon,  ha 
thought  himself  to  be  as  well  lodged  as  the  lord  of  the 
town.'  "*  But  Elizabeth  ascended  the  throne,  and  Shaks- 
peare  tells  us  that  the  busiest  employment  of  the  elves 
and  fairies  was  to  pinch  "black  and  blue"  those  servants 
who  neglected  to  cleanse  the  hearth-stone  with  due  regu- 
larity. And  Harrison  informs  us  that  the  farmers'  houses 
in  his  time  were  well  supplied  "  with  three  or  four  feather- 
beds,  as  many  coverlids  and  carpets  of  tapestry,  besides 
a  fair  garnish  of  pewter  on  the  cupboard,  with  a  silver 
salt-cellar,  a  bowl  for  wine,  and  a  dozen  of  spoons  to  fur- 
nish up  the  suit."t 

More  than  one  generation  will  pass  away  before  a  peo- 
ple will  have  exhausted  the  novel  enjoyments  of  such  un- 
usual good  fortune.  The  reigns  of  both  Elizabeth  and 
her  successor  were  scarcely  sufficient  to  wear  out  that 
taste  for  comfort  and  repose  which  had  been  fostered  by 
long-continued  agitations ;  and  that  religious  ardor,  the 
explosion  of  which  subsequently  revealed  the  existence 
of  new  forces  which  had  lain  hid  in  the  bosom  of  society 
during  the  tranquillity  of  these  two  reigns,  was  then 
spreading  itself  silently  among  the  masses,  without  as 
yet  giving  birth  to  any  general  and  decisive  movement. 

The  Reformation,  though  treated  with  hostility  by  the 
great  sovereigns  of  the  Continent,  had  received  from  Henry 
VIII.  enough  encouragement  and  support  to  lessen  its  am- 
bition and  retard  its  progress  for  a  time.  The  yoke  of 
Rome  had  been  cast  off,  and  monastic  life  abolished.  By 
thus  granting  satisfaction  to  the  primary  desires  of  the 
age,  and  turning  the  first  blows  of  the  Reformation  to 
the  advantage  of  material  interests,  Henry  VIII.  deterred 

*  Harrison's  Description  of  England,  prefixed  to  Holinshed's  Chronicles, 
;ol.  i.,  p.  188.  t  H»id..  p.  189. 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  19 

many  minds  from  inquiring  more  thoroughly  into  the 
purely  theological  dogmas  of  Catholicism,  which  no  longer 
shocked  them  by  the  exhibition  of  its  most  obnoxious 
abuses.  Faith,  it  is  true,  was  in  a  tottering  state,  and 
could  no  longer  cling  firmly  to  disputed  doctrines.  These 
doctrines,  therefore,  were  fated  one  day  to  fall ;  but  the 
day  of  their  rejection  was  delayed.  At  a  time  when  the 
Catholic  defender  of  the  real  presence  was  burned  at  the 
stake  for  maintaining  the  supremacy  of  the  Pope,  and  the 
Reformer  who  denied  the  papal  supremacy  suffered  the 
same  punishment  for  refusing  to  admit  the  real  presencej 
many  minds  necessarily  remained  in  suspense.  Neither 
of  the  two  conflicting  opinions  afforded  to  cowardice,  which 
is  so  plentifully  manifested  in  difficult  times,  the  refuge 
of  a  victorious  party.  The  dogma  of  political  obedience 
was  the  only  one  which  docile  consciences  could  adopt 
with  any  zeal ;  and  among  the  sincere  adherents  of  either 
party,  the  hopes  of  triumph  which  so  singular  a  position 
allowed  each  to  entertain  still  kept  in  activity  those  tim- 
idly courageous  individuals  whom  tyranny  is  obliged  to 
pursue  into  their  last  retrenchments,  in  order  to  force 
them  to  offer  any  resistance. 

The  vicissitudes  experienced  by  the  religious  establish- 
ment of  England,  during  the  reigns  of  Edward  VI.  and 
Mary,  tended  to  maintain  this  disposition.  Anxiety  foi 
martyrdom  had  not  time,  in  either  party,  to  nourish  and 
diffuse  itself;  and  though  the  party  of  the  Reformation — 
which  was  already  more  influential  over  the  public  mind, 
more  persevering  in  its  exertions,  and  more  remarkable 
for  the  number  and  courage  of  its  martyrs — was  proceed- 
ing evidently  toward  a  final  victory,  yet  the  success  which 
it  had  obtained  at  the  accession  of  Elizabeth  had  supplied 
it  rather  with  leisure  to  prepare  for  new  conflicts  than 


20  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

with  power  to  engage  in  them  at  once,  and  to  render  them 
decisive. 

Though  connected,  by  her  position,  with  the  doctrines 
of  the  Reformers,  Elizabeth  had,  in  common  with  the 
Catholic  clergy,  a  strong  taste  for  pomp  and  authority. 
Her  first  regulations  in  regard  to  religious  matters  were, 
consequently,  of  such  a  character  that  most  of  the  Cath- 
olics felt  no  repugnance  to  attend  the  divine  worship  with 
which  the  Reformers  were  satisfied ;  and  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Anglican  Church,  which  was  intrusted  to  the 
hands  of  the  existing  clergy,  met  with  very  little  resist- 
ance, and  at  the  same  time  very  little  encouragement, 
from  the  general  body  of  ecclesiastics.  Religion  con- 
tinued to  be  regarded,  by  a  great  many  persons,  as  a 
merely  political  matter.  The  disputes  of  England  with 
the  Court  of  Rome  and  with  Spain,  a  few  internal  con- 
spiracies and  the  severities  with  which  they  were  re- 
pressed, successively  created  new  causes  for  animosity  be- 
tween the  two  parties.  Religious  interest,  however,  had 
so  little  influence  over  public  feeling,  that  in  1569,  Eliza- 
beth, the  daughter  of  the  Reformation,  but  far  more  pre- 
cious to  her  people  as  the  pledge  of  public  repose  and 
prosperity,  found  most  of  her  Catholic  subjects  zealous  to 
assist  her  to  crush  the  Catholic  rebellion  of  a  part  of  the 
north  of  England. 

For  still  stronger  reasons,  they  willingly  agreed  to  that 
joyous  forgetfulness  of  all  great  subjects  of  dispute  which 
Elizabeth  encouraged  them  to  entertain.  It  is  true  that, 
in  the  depths  of  the  masses  of  the  people,  the  Reformation, 
which  had  been  flattered,  but  not  satisfied,  murmured  in 
distinctly  ;  and  even  that  voice  which  was  destined  soon 
o  shake  all  England  to  its  centre  was  heard  gradually 
rising  to  utterance.     But  amid  that  movement  of  youth- 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  21 

ful  vigor,  which  had,  as  it  were,  carried  away  the  whole 
nation,  the  stern  severity  of  the  Reformers  was  still  re 
garded  as  importunate,  and  those  who  had  bestowed  on  it 
a  passing  glance  quickly  turned  their  eyes  in  some  more 
agreeable  direction ;  so  that  the  accents  of  Puritanism, 
united  with  those  of  liberty,  were  repressed  without  effort 
by  a  power  under  whose  protection  the  people  had  too  re- 
cently been  sheltered  to  entertain  any  great  fear  of  its  en- 
croachments. 

No  periods  are  perhaps  more  favorable  to  the  fertility 
and  originality  of  mental  productions  than  those  times  at 
which  a  nation  already  free,  but  still  ignorant  of  its  own 
position,  ingenuously  enjoys  what  it  possesses  without  per- 
ceiving in  what  it  is  deficient :  times  full  of  ardor,  but 
very  easy  to  please,  before  rights  have  been  narrowly  de- 
fined, powers  discussed,  or  restrictions  agreed  upon.  The 
government  and  the  public,  proceeding  in  their  course  un- 
disturbed by  fears  or  scruples,  exist  together  without  any 
distrustful  observance  of  each  other,  and  even  come  into 
communication  but  rarely.  If,  on  the  one  side,  power  is 
unlimited,  on  the  other  liberty  will  be  great ;  for  both 
parties  will  be  ignorant  of  those  general  forms,  those  in- 
numerable and  minute  duties  to  which  actions  and  minds 
are  more  or  less  subjected  by  a  scientifically  constructed 
despotism,  and  even  by  a  well-regulated  liberty.  Thus  it 
was  that  the  age  of  Richelieu  and  Louis  XIV.  consciously 
possessed  that  amount  of  liberty  which  has  furnished  us 
with  a  literature  and  a  drama.  At  that  period  of  our  his- 
tory, when  even  the  name  of  public  liberties  seemed  tc 
have  been  forgotten,  and  when  a  feeling  of  the  dignity  of 
man  served  as  the  basis  neither  of  the  institutions  of  the 
country  nor  of  the  acts  of  the  government,  the  dignity  of 
individual  positions  still  existed  wherever  power  had  nol 


22  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TLMES. 

yet  found  it  necessary  to  crush  it.  Beside  the  forms  of 
servility,  we  meet  with  forms,  and  sometimes  even  with 
manifestations  of  independence.  The  grand  seigneur, 
though  submissive  and  adoring  as  a  courtier,  could  never- 
theless proudly  remember  on  certain  occasions  that  he  was 
a  gentleman.  Corneille  the  citizen  could  find  no  terms 
sufficiently  humble  to  express  his  gratitude  to,  and  de- 
pendence upon,  Cardinal  Richelieu ;  but  Corneille  the  poet 
disdained  the  authority  which  assumed  to  prescribe  rules 
for  the  guidance  of  his  genius,  and  defended,  against  the 
literary  pretensions  of  an  absolute  minister,  those  "secret 
means  of  pleasing  which  he  might  have  found  in  his  art." 
In  fine,  men  of  vigorous  mind  evaded  in  a  thousand  ways 
the  yoke  of  a  still  incomplete  or  inexperienced  despotism  ; 
and  the  imagination  soared  freely  in  every  direction  within 
the  range  of  its  flight. 

In  England,  during  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  the  supreme 
power,  though  far  more  irregular  and  less  skillfully  organ- 
ised than  it  was  in  France  under  Louis  XIV.,  had  to  treat 
with  much  more  deeply-rooted  principles  of  liberty.  It 
would  be  a  mistake  to  measure  the  despotism  of  Elizabeth 
by  the  speeches  of  her  flatterers,  or  even  by  the  acts  of  her 
government.  In  her  still  young  and  inexperienced  court, 
the  language  of  adulation  far  exceeded  the  servility  of  the 
adulator ;  and  in  the  country,  in  which  ancient  institu- 
tions had  by  no  means  perished,  the  government  was  far 
Irom  exercising  universal  sway.  In  the  counties  and 
chief  towns,  an  independent  administration  maintained 
habits  and  instincts  of  liberty.  The  queen  imposed  si- 
lence upon  the  Commons  when  they  pressed  her  to  ap- 
point a  successor,  or  to  grant  some  article  of  religious  lib- 
erty. But  the  Commons  had  met,  and  spoken ;  and  tho 
queen,  notwithstanding  the  haughtiness  of  her  refusal, 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  23 

took  great  care  to  give  no  cause  for  complaints  that  might 
have  increased  the  authority  of  their  words.  Despotism 
and  liberty,  thus  avoiding  a  meeting  instead  of  seeking  a 
battle,  manifested  themselves  without  feeling  any  hatred 
for  each  other,  with  that  simplicity  of  action  which  pre- 
vents those  collisions  and  banishes  those  bitter  feelings 
which  are  occasioned  on  both  sides  by  continual  resist- 
ance. A  Puritan  had  had  his  right  hand  cut  off  as  a  pun- 
ishment for  having  written  a  tract  against  the  proposed 
marriage  of  Elizabeth  to  the  Duke  of  Anjou  ;  and  imme- 
diately after  the  sentence  had  been  executed,  he  waved 
his  hat  with  his  left  hand,  and  shouted,  "  (rod  save  the 
Queen !"  When  loyalty  is  thus  deeply  rooted  in  the  heart 
of  a  man  exposed  to  such  sufferings  for  the  cause  of  liberty, 
Liberty  in  general  must  necessarily  think  that  it  has  no 
great  reason  for  complaint. 

This  period,  then,  was  deficient  in  none  of  the  advant- 
ages which  it  was  capable  of  desiring.  There  was  noth- 
ing to  prevent  the  minds  of  the  people  from  indulging 
freely  in  all  the  intoxication  natural  to  thought  when  it 
has  reached  the  age  of  development — an  age  of  follies  and 
miracles,  when  the  imagination  revels  in  its  most  puerile 
as  well  as  in  its  noblest  manifestations.  Extravagantly 
luxurious  festivities,  splendor  of  dress,  addiction  to  gal- 
lantry, ardent  conformity  to  fashion,  and  sacrifices  to  favor, 
employed  the  wealth  and  leisure  of  the  courtiers  of  Eliz- 
abeth. More  enthusiastic  temperaments  went  to  distant 
lands  in  search  of  adventures,  which,  in  addition  to  the 
hope  of  fortune,  offered  them  the  livelier  pleasure  of  peril- 
ous encounters.  Sir  Francis  Drake  sailed  forth  as  a  cor- 
sair, and  volunteers  thronged  on  board  his  ship  ;  Sir  Wal- 
ter Raleigh  announced  a  distant  expedition,  and  scions  of 
noble  houses  sold  their  goods  to  join  his  crew.     Spontane* 


24  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

ous  ventures  and  patriotic  enterprises  followed  each  othei 
in  almost  daily  succession ;  and,  far  from  becoming  ex- 
hausted "by  this  continual  movement,  the  minds  of  men 
received  from  it  fresh  vigor  and  impulse.  Thought  claim- 
ed its  share  in  the  supply  of  pleasures,  and  became,  at  the 
same  time,  the  sustenance  of  the  most  serious  passions. 
While  the  crowd  hurried  on  all  sides  into  the  numerous 
theatres  which  had  been  erected,  the  Puritan,  in  his  sol- 
itary meditations,  burned  with  indignation  against  these 
pomps  of  Belial,  and  this  sacrilegious  employment  of  man, 
the  image  of  God  upon  earth.  Poetic  ardor  and  religious 
asperity,  literary  quarrels  and  theological  controversies, 
taste  for  festivities  and  fanaticism  for  austerities,  philoso- 
phy and  criticism,  sermons,  pamphlets,  and  epigrams,  ap. 
peared  simultaneously,  and  jostled  each  other  in  admired 
confusion.  Amid  this  natural  and  fantastic  conflict  of  op- 
posite elements,  the  power  of  opinion,  the  feeling  and  habit 
of  liberty,  were  silently  in  process  of  formation :  two  forces, 
brilliant  at  their  first  appearance  and  imposing  in  their 
progress,  the  first-fruits  of  which  belong  to  any  skillful  gov- 
ernment that  is  able  to  use  them,  but  the  maturity  of 
which  is  terrible  to  any  imprudent  government  that  may 
attempt  to  reduce  them  to  servitude.  The  impulse  which 
has  constituted  the  glory  of  a  reign,  may  speedily  become 
the  fever  which  will  precipitate  a  people  into  revolution. 
In  the  days  of  Elizabeth,  the  movement  of  the  public  mind 
summoned  England  only  to  festivities  ;  and  dramatic  po- 
etry  sprang  into  full  being  under  the  master-hand  of  Shaks- 
peare. 

Who  would  not  delight  to  go  to  the  fountain-head  of 
the  first  inspirations  of  an  original  genius ;  to  penetrate 
into  the  secret  of  the  causes  which  guided  his  nascent 
powers  ;  to  follow  him  stop  by  stop  in  his  progress  ;  and, 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  25 

in  a  word,  to  behold  the  whole  inner  life  of  a  man  who, 
after  having  in  his  own  country  opened  to  dramatic  poetry 
the  road  which  she  has  never  since  quitted,  still  reigns 
pre-eminent,  and  with  almost  undivided  sway  ?  Unfor- 
tunately, Shakspeare  is  one  of  these  superior  men  whose 
life  was  but  little  noticed  by  his  contemporaries,  and  it 
has  therefore  remained  obscure  to  succeeding  generations. 
A  few  civil  registers  in  which  traces  of  the  existence  of 
his  family  have  been  preserved,  a  few  traditions  connected 
with  his  name  in  the  district  in  which  he  was  born,  and 
the  splendid  productions  of  his  own  genius,  are  the  only 
means  which  we  possess  of  supplying  the  deficiencies  of 
his  personal  history. 

The  family  of  Shakspeare  resided  at  Stratford-upon- 
Avon,  in  the  county  of  Warwick.  His  father,  John  Shaks- 
peare, derived  the  greater  part  of  his  income,  as  it  would 
appear,  from  his  business  as  a  wool-stapler.  It  is  proba- 
ble, however,  that  he  connected  with  this  several  other 
branches  of  trade ;  for  in  some  anecdotes  collected  at 
Stratford — fifty  years,  it  is  true,  after  Shakspeare's  death 
— Aubrey*  represents  him  to  have  been  the  son  of  a 
butcher.  At  such  a  distance  of  time,  recollections  hand- 
ed down  through  two  or  three  generations  might  have  be- 
come somewhat  confused  in  the  memory  of  Shakspeare's 
fellow-townsmen ;  but  professions  were  not  then  so  dis- 
tinct or  so  numerous  as  they  have  become  in  our  times, 
and  nothing  could  have  been  less  strange,  at  this  period, 
and  especially  in  a  small  town,  than  the  union  of  the 
various  trades  connected  with  the  sale  of  cattle.  How- 
ever this  may  be,  Shakspeare's  family  belonged  to  that 

*  A  writer  who  lived  about  fifty  years  after  Shakspeare,  and  who  made 
a  collection  ol  anecdotes  and  traditions  regarding  the  time  in  which  he 
flourished. 

B 


16  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

bourgeoisie  which  early  acquired  so  much  importance  in 
England.  His  great-great-grandfather  had  received  from 
Henry  VII.,  "  for  his  valiant  and  faithful  services,"  a 
grant  of  land  in  "Warwickshire.  His  father  filled  the  of- 
fice of  high  bailiff  of  Stratford  in  the  year  1569  ;  but,  ten 
years  afterward,  it  would  seem  that  he  experienced  a  re- 
verse of  fortune,  for  in  1579  we  find,  from  the  registers 
of  Stratford,  that  two  aldermen,  of  whom  John  Shakspeare 
was  one,  were  exempted  from  paying  a  small  tax  paid  by 
their  colleagues.  In  15S6  he  was  removed  from  his  office 
of  alderman,  the  duties  of  which  he  had  for  some  time 
ceased  to  perform.  Other  causes  besides  his  poverty  may 
have  led  to  his  removal.  It  has  been  said  that  Shakspeare 
was  a  Catholic  ;  and  it  appears  at  least  to  be  certain  that 
such  was  the  faith  of  his  father.  In  the  year  1770,  a 
bricklayer,  while  mending  the  roof  of  the  house  in  which 
Shakspeare  was  born,  found,  between  the  rafters  and  the 
tiling,  a  manuscript,  which  had  doubtless  been  hidden 
there  in  a  time  of  persecution,  and  which  contained  a  pro- 
fession of  the  Catholic  faith  in  fourteen  articles,  all  of 
which  began  with  the  words  :  "  I,  John  Shakspeare." 
The  ever-increasing  power  of  the  doctrines  of  the  Refor- 
mation had,  perhaps,  rendered  the  duties  of  an  alderman 
more  difficult  of  performance  to  a  Catholic,  who,  as  he  ad- 
vanced in  age,  may  also  have  become  more  scrupulous  in 
the  observance  of  the  rules  of  his  faith. 

William  Shakspeare  was  born  on  the  23d  of  April, 
1564.  He  was  the  third  or  fourth  of  the  nine,  ten,  oi 
perhaps  eleven  children  who  constituted  the  family  of 
John.  William,  there  is  reason  to  believe,  was  the  first 
son,  the  eldest  of  his  father's  hopes.  Prosperity  and  re- 
spectability undoubtedly  belonged,  at  this  period,  to  his 
family,  as  its  head  became  chief  magistrate  of  his  nativo 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  27 

town  five  years  afterward.  We  may  therefore  admit  that 
Shakspeare's  education,  in  his  earlier  years,  was  in  con- 
formity with  the  circumstances  of  his  father ;  and  when 
a  change  in  his  fortunes,  from  whatever  cause  it  may  have 
arisen,  occasioned  an  interruption  of  his  studies,  he  had 
prohably  acquired  those  first  elements  of  a  liberal  educa- 
tion which  are  quite  sufficient  to  free  the  mind  of  a  su- 
perior man  from  the  awkwardness  of  ignorance,  and  to 
put  him  in  possession  of  those  forms  which  he  will  need 
for  the  suitable  expression  of  his  thoughts.  This  is  more 
than  enough  to  explain  how  it  was  that  Shakspeare  was 
deficient  in  those  acquirements  which  constitute  a  good 
education,  although  he  possessed  the  elegance  which  is 
its  usual  accompaniment. 

Shakspeare  was  scarcely  fifteen  years  old  when  he  was 
taken  from  school  to  assist  his  impoverished  father  in  his 
business.  It  was  then  that,  according  to  Aubrey,  William 
exercised  the  sanguinary  functions  of  a  butcher's  assist- 
ant. This  supposition  is  considered  revolting  by  com- 
mentators on  the  poet  at  the  present  day  ;  but  a  circum- 
stance related  by  Aubrey  does  not  permit  us  to  doubt  its 
correctness,  and  at  the  same  time  reveals  to  us  that  his 
young  imagination  was  already  incapable  of  subjecting 
itself  to  so  vile  an  employment  without  connecting  there- 
with some  ennobling  idea  or  sentiment.  "  When  he  killed 
a  calf,"  said  the  people  of  the  neighborhood  to  Aubrey, 
"  he  would  do  it  in  a  high  style,  and  make  a  speech." 
Who  can  not  catch  a  glimpse,  in  this  story,  of  the  tragic 
poet  inspired  by  the  sight  of  death,  even  in  an  animal, 
and  striving  to  render  it  imposing  or  pathetic  ?  Who  can 
not  picture  to  himself  the  scholar  of  thirteen  or  fourteen 
years  of  age,  with  his  head  full  of  his  first  literary  attain- 
ments, and  his  mind  impressed,  perhaps,  by  some  theat« 


88  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

rical  performance,  elevating,  in  poetic  transport,  the  ani« 
mal  about  to  fall  beneath  his  ax  to  the  dignity  of  a  vie 
tim,  or  perhaps  even  to  that  of  a  tyrant  ? 

In  the  year  1576,  the  brilliant  Leicester  celebrated  the 
visit  of  Q,ueen  Elizabeth  to  Kenilworth  by  festivities, 
whose  extraordinary  magnificence  is  attested  by  all  the 
clironicles  of  the  time.  Shakspeare  was  then  twelve  years 
old,  and  Kenilworth  is  only  a  few  miles  from  Stratford. 
It  is  difficult  to  doubt  that  the  family  of  the  young  poet 
participated,  with  all  the  population  of  the  surrounding 
country,  in  the  pleasure  and  admiration  excited  by  these 
pompous  spectacles.  "What  an  impulse  would  the  imag- 
ination of  Shakspeare  not  fail  to  receive  !  Nevertheless, 
the  early  years  of  the  poet  have  transmitted  to  us,  as  the 
only  sign  of  those  singularities  which  may  announce  the 
presence  of  genius,  the  anecdote  which  I  have  just  re- 
lated ;  and  the  information  which  we  possess  regarding 
the  amusements  of  his  youth  gives  no  hint  whatever  of 
the  tastes  and  pleasures  of  a  literary  life. 

We  live  in  times  of  civilization,  and  progress,  when 
every  thing  has  its  place  and  rule,  and  when  the  destiny 
of  every  individual  is  determined  by  circumstances  more 
or  less  imperious,  but  which  manifest  themselves  at  an 
early  period.  A  poet  begins  by  being  a  poet ;  he  who  is 
to  become  one  knows  it  almost  from  infancy ;  poetry  has 
been  familiar  to  his  earliest  contemplation ;  it  may  have 
been  his  first  taste,  his  first  passion  when  the  movement 
of  the  passions  awakened  in  his  heart.  The  young  man 
has  expressed  in  verse  that  which  he  does  not  yet  feel ; 
and  when  feeling  truly  arises  within  him,  his  first  thought 
will  be  to  express  it  in  verse.  Poetry  has  become  the  ob- 
ject of  his  existence — an  object  as  important  as  any  othei 
—a  career  in  which  he  may  obtain  fortune  as  well  as 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  29 

glcry,  and  which  may  afford  an  opening  to  the  serious 
ideas  of  his  future  life,  as  well  as  to  the  capricious  sallies 
of  his  youth.  In  so  advanced  a  state  of  society,  a  man 
can  not  be  long  ignorant,  or  spend  much  time  in  search 
of  his  own  powers  ;  an  easy  way  presents  itself  to  the 
view  of  that  youthful  ardor  which  would  probably  wan- 
der far  astray  before  finding  the  direction  best  suited  to 
it ;  those  forces  and  passions  from  which  talent  will  issue 
soon  learn  the  secret  of  their  destiny ;  and,  summed  up 
in  speeches,  images,  and  harmonious  cadences,  the  illu- 
sions of  desire,  the  chimeras  of  hope,  and  sometimes  even 
the  bitterness  of  disappointment,  are  exhaled  without  dif- 
ficulty in  the  precocious  essays  of  the  young  man. 

In  times  when  life  is  difficult  and  manners  coarse,  this 
is  rarely  the  case  in  regard  to  the  poet,  who  is  formed  by 
nature  alone.  Nothing  reveals  him  so  speedily  to  him- 
self; he  must  have  felt  much  before  he  can  think  he  has 
any  thing  to  portray  ;  his  first  powers  will  be  spent  in  ac- 
tion— in  such  irregular  action  as  may  be  provoked  by  the 
impatience  of  his  desires — in  violent  action,  if  any  obstacle 
intervene  between  himself  and  the  success  with  which  his 
fiery  imagination  has  promised  to  crown  him.  In  vain  has 
fate  bestowed  on  him  the  noblest  gifts ;  he  can  employ  them 
only  upon  the  single  object  with  which  he  is  acquainted. 
Heaven  only  knows  what  triumphs  he  will  achieve  by  his 
eloquence,  in  what  projects  and  for  what  advantages  he 
will  display  the  riches  of  his  inventive  faculty,  among 
what  equals  his  talents  will  raise  him  to  the  first  rank, 
and  of  what  society  the  vivacity  of  his  mind  will  render 
him  the  amusement  and  the  idol !  Alas  for  this  melan- 
choly subjection  of  man  to  the  external  world  !  Gifted 
with  useless  power  if  his  horizon  be  less  extensive  than 
his  capacity  of  vision,  he  sees  only  that  which  lies  around 


30  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

him ;  and  Heaven,  which  has  bestowed  treasures  upon  him 
with  such  lavish  munificence,  has  done  nothing  for  him  if 
it  does  not  place  him  in  circumstances  which  may  reveal 
them  to  his  gaze.  This  revelation  commonly  arises  from 
misfortune ;  when  the  world  fails  the  superior  man,  he  falls 
back  upon  himself,  and  becomes  aware  of  his  own  resour- 
ces ;  when  necessity  presses  him,  he  collects  his  powers ; 
and  it  is  frequently  through  having  lost  the  faculty  of 
groveling  upon  earth  that  genius  and  virtue  rise  in  triumph 
to  the  skies. 

Neither  the  occupations  in  which  Shakspeare  seemed 
destined  to  spend  his  life,  nor  the  amusements  and  com- 
panions of  his  leisure  hours,  afforded  him_any_materials 
adapted  to  affect  and  absorb  that  imagination,  the  power 
of  which  had  begun  to  agitate  his  being.  Rushing  into 
all  the  excitements  which  he  met  on  his  way,  because 
nothing  could  satisfy  him,  the  youth  of  the  poet  gave  ad- 
mission to  pleasure,  under  whatever  form  it  presented  it- 
self. A  tradition  of  the  banks  of  the  Avon,  which  is  in 
strict  accordance  with  probability,  gives  us  reason  to  sup- 
pose that  he  had  only  a  choice  of  the  most  vulgar  diver- 
sions. The  anecdote  is  still  related,  it  is  said,  by  the  men 
of  Stratford  and  of  Bidford,  a  neighboring  village,  renown- 
ed in  past  ages  for  the  excellence  of  its  beer,  and  also,  it 
is  added,  for  the  unquenchable  thirst  of  its  inhabitants. 

The  population  of  the  neighborhood  of  Bidford  was  di- 
vided into  two  classes,  known  by  the  names  of  Topers  and 
Sippers.  These  fraternities  were  in  the  habit  of  challeng- 
ing to  drinking-bouts  all  those  who,  in  the  surrounding 
country,  took  credit  to  themselves  for  any  merit  of  this 
kind.  The  youth  of  Stratford,  when  challenged  in  its 
turn,  valiantly  accepted  the  defiance;  and  Shakspeare, 
who,  we  are  assured,  was  no  less  a  connoisseur  in  beei 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  31 

than  Falstaff  in  Canary  sack,  formed  a  part  of  the  joyous 
band,  from  which,  doubtless,  he  rarely  separated.  But 
their  strength  was  not  equal  to  their  courage.  On  arriv- 
ing at  the  place  of  meeting,  the  champions  of  Stratford 
found  out  that  the  Topers  had  set  out  for  a  neighboring 
fair.  The  Sippers,  who,  to  all  appearance,  were  less  for- 
midable opponents,  remained  alone,  and  proposed  to  try 
the  fortune  of  war.  The  offer  was  accepted ;  but  in  a 
short  time  the  Stratford  party  were  thoroughly  Knocked 
up,  and  reduced  to  the  sad  necessity  of  employing  their 
little  remaining  reason  in  using  their  legs  as  they  best 
might  to  effect  a  retreat.  The  operation  was  difficult, 
and  soon  became  impossible.  They  had  hardly  gone  a 
mile,  when  their  strength  failed,  and  the  whole  party  biv- 
ouacked for  the  night  under  a  crab-tree,  which,  travelers 
tell  us,  is  still  standing  on  the  road  from  Stratford  to  Bid- 
ford,  and  is  known  by  the  name  of  Shakspeare's  Tree. 
On  the  following  morning,  his  comrades,  refreshed  and  in- 
vigorated by  rest  and  sleep,  endeavored  to  induce  him  to 
return  with  them  to  avenge  the  affront  they  had  received 
on  the  previous  evening ;  but  Shakspeare  refused  to  go 
back,  and,  looking  round  on  the  villages  which  were  to  be 
seen  from  the  point  on  which  he  stood,  exclaimed,  "  No,  I 
have  had  enough  drinking  with 

'  Piping  Pebworth,  dancing  Marston, 
Haunted  Hillborough,  hungry  Grafton, 
Dudging*  Exhall,  Papist  Wicksford, 
Beggarly  Broom,  and  drunken  Bidford.'  ';t 

This  conclusion  of  the  adventure  gives  rise  to  the  pre- 
sumption that  debauchery  had  less  share  than  gayety  in 

*  Sulky,  stubborn,  in  dudgeon. 

t  Several  of  these  villages  still  retain  the  reputation  ascribed  to  theui 
oy  Shakspeare  in  this  quatrain. 


32  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

these  excursions  of  Shakspeare's  youth,  and  that  verse,  if 
not  poetry,  was  already  the  natural  language  in  which  he 
gave  expression  to  his  feelings.  Tradition  has  handed 
down  to  us  some  other  impromptus  of  the  same  kind,  but 
they  are  connected  with  anecdotes  of  less  significance. 
All  that  we  know,  however,  combines  to  portray  to  us  his 
merry  and  quick  imagination  disporting  itself  with  com- 
placency amid  the  uncouth  objects  of  his  amusements ; 
and  we  behold  the  future  friend  of  Lord  Southampton 
charming  the  rustic  inhabitants  of  the  banks  of  the  Avon 
with  that  graceful  animation,  that  joyous  serenity  of  tem- 
per, and  that  benevolent  openness  of  character  which  every 
where  found  or  made  for  itself  pleasures  and  friends. 

Meanwhile,  amid  these  grotesque  follies,  a  serious  event 
took  place,  and  that  was  the  marriage  of  Shakspeare. 
At  the  time  when  he  contracted  this  important  engage- 
ment, Shakspeare  was  not  more  than  eighteen  years  of 
age,  for  his  eldest  daughter  came  into  the  world  just  a 
month  after  he  had  completed  his  nineteenth  year.  What 
motive  led  him  thus  early  to  undertake  responsibilities 
which  he  seemed  as  yet  but  ill  calculated  to  discharge? 
Anne  Hathaway,  his  wife,  the  daughter  of  a  farmer,  and 
therefore  a  little  inferior  to  him  in  rank,  was  eight  years 
older  than  himself.  She  may,  perhaps,  have  surpassed  him 
in  fortune,  or  perhaps  the  parents  of  the  poet  were  anxious 
to  attach  him,  by  an  advantageous  marriage,  to  some  set- 
tled occupation ;  it  does  not  appear,  however,  that  Shaks- 
peare's marriage  added  to  his  worldly  prosperity ;  the  con- 
trary, indeed,  was  the  case.  Perhaps  love  led  to  the  union 
of  the  young  couple ;  perhaps  even  it  constrained  their 
families  to  hasten  the  legitimate  accomplishment  of  their 
wishes.  However  this  may  be,  in  less  than  two  years  after 
the  birth  of  Susanna,  the  first-fruit  of  their  marriage,  twins 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  35 

were  born,  a  boy  and  a  girl — the  last  proof  of  a  conjugal 
intimacy  which  had  at  first  announced  itself  under  such 
favorable  appearances.  According  to  some  indications, 
which  are,  in  truth,  doubtful  and  obscure,  the  wife  of 
Shakspeare,  who,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  was  remem- 
bered, or  rather  forgotten,  in  a  strange  manner  in  his  will, 
was  only  rarely  present  to  his  thoughts  in  the  after  part  of 
his  life  ;  and  this  irrevocable  engagement,  so  hastily  con- 
tracted, seems  to  have  been  one  of  the  most  fleeting  fan- 
cies of  his  youth. 

Among  the  facts  and  conjectures  which  have  been  stored 
up  in  reference  to  this  period  of  Shakspeare's  life,  we  must 
place  the  tradition  related  by  Aubrey,  which  represents 
him  as  having  for  some  time  filled  the  office  of  schoolmas- 
ter, though  the  truth  of  this  anecdote  is  denied  by  nearly 
all  his  biographers.  Some  writers,  basing  their  supposi- 
tion upon  passages  contained  in  his  works,  are  inclined  to 
believe  that  the  poet  of  Elizabeth  attempted  to  subject  the 
powers  of  his  mind  to  the  routine  duties  of  a  lawyer's  of- 
fice. According  to  their  conjectures,  the  new  duties  of 
paternity  compelled  him  to  seek  this  employment  for  his 
talents,  whereas  Aubrey  places  his  brief  experience  as  a 
schoolmaster  before  his  marriage.  Nothing  is,  however, 
certain  or  important  on  these  points.  Of  one  thing  only 
we  may  speak  with  certainty,  and  that  is,  the  constant 
disposition  of  the  husband  of  Anne  Hathaway  to  vary,  by 
diversions  of  every  kind,  whatever  occupations  might  bo 
imposed  upon  him  by  necessity.  The  occurrence  which 
forced  Shakspeare  to  leave  Stratford,  and  gave  to  England 
her  greatest  poet,  proves  that  his  position  as  the  father  of 
a  family  had  not  effected  any  great  alteration  in  the  irreg- 
ularity of  his  habits  as  a  young  man. 

Jealous  preservers  of  their  game,  like  all  gentlemen  who 

C 


34  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

are  not  engaged  in  war,  the  possessors  of  parks  were  con 
tinually  under  the  necessity  of  defending  them  against  in 
vasions,  which,  in  places  so  open  and  unprotected,  were 
as  frequent  as  they  were  easy.  Danger  does  not  always 
diminish  temptation,  but  frequently  even  makes  it  appear 
less  illegitimate.  A  band  of  poachers  carried  on  their  dep- 
redations in  the  neighborhood  of  Stratford,  and  Shakspeare, 
who  was  eminently  sociable,  never  refused  to  engage  in 
any  thing  that  was  done  in  common.  He  was  caught  in 
the  park  of  Sir  Thomas  Lucy,  locked  up  in  the  keeper's 
lodge,  where  he  passed  the  night  in  no  very  agreeable  man- 
ner, and  taken  the  next  morning  before  Sir  Thomas,  in 
whose  presence,  according  to  all  appearance,  he  did  not 
extenuate  his  fault  by  submission  and  repentance.  Shaks- 
peare seems  to  have  retained  too  merry  a  recollection  of 
this  circumstance  of  his  life  for  us  to  suppose  that  it  caused 
him  any  thing  more  than  amusement.  Sir  Thomas  Lucy, 
whom  he  brought  on  the  stage  some  years  afterward  as 
Justice  Shallow,  had  doubtless  taken  hold  of  his  imagina- 
tion less  as  an  object  of  ill  humor  than  as  a  pleasant 
caricature.  "Whether,  in  their  interview,  Shakspeare  ex- 
ercised the  vivacity  of  his  wit  at  the  expense  of  his  pow- 
erful adversary,  and  consoled  himself  by  his  success  for  his 
ill  luck,  or  whether  he  enjoyed  the  scene  with  that  mock- 
ing pride  which  is  so  amusing  to  the  person  who  displays 
it,  and  so  offensive  to  him  who  has  to  submit  to  it,  we  do 
not  know,  but  such  a  supposition  is  in  itself  very  probable  ; 
and  the  scene  in  the  "  Second  Part  of  Henry  IV.,"  in  which 
Falstaff  treats  with  witty  insolence  Justice  Shallow,  who 
threatens  to  prosecute  him  for  just  such  an  offense,  evi- 
dently conveys  to  us  some  of  the  repartees  of  the  young 
poacher.  They  were  not  intended,  and  could  not  have 
availed,  to  mollify  the  resentment  of  Sir  Thomas      In 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  35 

whatever  manner  he  may  have  vented  his  wrath  upon  the 
offender  who  was  then  in  his  power,  the  necessity  for  venge- 
ance had  become  reciprocal.  Shakspeare  composed,  and 
posted  on  Sir  Thomas's  gates,  a  ballad  which  was  quite 
bad  enough  to  thoroughly  divert  the  public,  to  whom  he 
then  looked  for  triumph,  and  to  excite  to  the  last  degree 
the  anger  of  the  man  whose  name  it  held  up  to  popular 
ridicule.  A  criminal  prosecution  was  commenced  against 
the  young  man  with  such  violence,  that  he  found  it  nec- 
essary to  provide  for  his  own  safety ;  so  he  left  his  family, 
and  traveled  to  London  in  search  of  an  asylum  and  the 
means  of  subsistence. 

Some  of  Shakspeare's  biographers  have  supposed  that 
pecuniary  difficulties  may  have  occasioned  this  flight  from 
home.  Aubrey  attributes  it  only  to  his  desire  to  find  in 
London  some  opportunity  for  the  display  of  his  talent. 
But,  whatever  may  have  been  the  ulterior  results  of  the 
poet's  adventure  with  Sir  Thomas  Lucy,  the  fact  itself 
can  not  be  called  in  question.  Shakspeare  seems  to  have 
taken  particular  pains  to  state  it.  Of  all  Falstaff 's  fol- 
lies, the  only  one  for  which  he  is  not  punished  is  having 
"beaten  the  men  and  killed  the  deer"  of  Shallow — an  ex- 
ploit in  far  greater  conformity  to  the  idea  which  Shaks- 
peare may  have  retained  of  his  own  youth,  than  to  the 
description  he  has  given  us  of  the  old  knight,  who  is  gen- 
erally vanquished  instead  of  victorious.  All  the  advant- 
age, however,  remains  with  Falstaff  in  this  affair ;  and 
Shallow,  who  is  so  clearly  designated  by  the  arms  of  the 
Lucy  family,  is  nowhere  so  ridiculous  as  in  the  scene  in 
which  he  vents  his  wrath  against  the  robber  of  his  game. 
The  poet,  indeed,  takes  no  further  notice  of  him,  but  leaves 
him,  when  he  gets  out  of  Falstaff 's  hands,  as  if  he  had 
obtained  from  him  all  that  he  intended  to  extract.     The 


36  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

friendly  care  and  complacency  with  which  Shakspeare  re- 
produces in  the  piece,  in  reference  to  Shallow's  armorial 
bearings,  the  play  upon  words  which  formed  the  basis  of 
his  ballad  against  Sir  Thomas  Lucy,  have  quite  the  ap- 
pearance of  a  tender  recollection ;  and  assuredly,  few  his- 
torical anecdotes  can  produce  in  favor  of  their  authentici- 
ty such  conclusive  moral  evidence. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  we  can  not  say  as  much  with  re- 
gard to  the  employment  of  the  early  part  of  Shakspeare's 
residence  in  London,  to  the  circumstances  which  led  to 
his  connection  with  the  stage,  and  to  the  part  which  con- 
sciousness of  his  talent  may  have  had  in  forming  the  res- 
olution which  directed  the  flight  of  his  genius.  But  even 
the  best  authenticated  traditions  on  these  points  are  de- 
ficient alike  in  probability  and  in  proofs.  That  craving 
after  astonishment,  which  is  the  source  of  marvelous 
beliefs,  and  which  will  almost  always  make  our  faith  in- 
cline toward  the  stranger  of  two  narratives,  disposes  us  in 
general  to  seek,  for  all  important  events,  an  accidental 
cause  in  what  we  call  chance.  "We  then  admire,  with 
singular  delight,  the  miraculous  shrewdness  of  that  chance 
which  we  suppose  to  be  blind,  because  we  are  blind  our- 
selves ;  and  our  imagination  rejoices  in  the  idea  of  an  un- 
reasoning force  presiding  over  the  destiny  of  a  man  of  ge- 
nius. Thus,  according  to  the  most  accredited  tradition, 
misery  alone  determined  the  choice  of  Shakspeare's  first 
occupation  in  London,  and  the  care  of  holding  horses  at 
the  door  of  the  theatre  was  his  first  connection  with  the 
stage — his  first  step  toward  dramatic  life.  But  the  ex- 
traordinary man  is  always  revealed  by  some  outward 
sign :  such  was  the  graoefulness  manifested  by  the  new- 
comer in  his  humble  duties,  that  soon  no  one  would  trust 
his  horse  into  other  hands  than  those  of  William  Shake- 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  37 

peare  or  his  assistants.  Extending  his  business,  this  fa- 
vored servant  of  the  public  hired  boys  to  wait  under  his 
inspection,  who,  when  Will  Skakspeare  was  summoned, 
were  immediately  to  present  themselves,  as  they  were 
oertain  to  be  preferred  when  they  declared  themselves 
"Shakspeare's  boys" — a  title  which,  it  is  said,  was  long 
retained  by  the  waiters  that  held  horses  at  the  doors  of 
the  theatres. 

Such  is  the  anecdote  related  by  Johnson,  who  had  it, 
he  said,  from  Pope,  to  whom  it  was  communicated  by 
Rowe.  Nevertheless,  Rowe,  Shakspeare's  first  biographer, 
has  not  mentioned  it  in  his  own  narrative,  and  Johnson's 
authority  is  supported  only  by  Cibber's  "  Lives  of  the 
Poets,"  a  work  to  which  Cibber  contributed  nothing  but 
his  name,  and  of  which  one  of  Johnson's  own  amanuenses 
was  almost  the  sole  author. 

Another  tradition,  which  had  been  preserved  among  the 
actors  of  the  time,  represents  Shakspeare  to  us  as  filling 
at  first  the  lowest  position  in  the  theatrical  hierarchy, 
namely,  that  of  call-boy,  whose  duty  it  was  to  summon 
the  actors,  when  their  time  came  to  appear  upon  the  stage. 
Such,  in  fact,  would  have  been  the  gradual  promotion  by 
which  the  horse-holder  might  have  raised  himself  to  the 
honor  of  admission  behind  the  scenes.  But,  when  turn- 
ing his  idea  to  the  theatre,  is  it  likely  that  Shakspeare 
would  have  stopped  short  at  the  door  ?  At  the  time  of 
his  arrival  in  London,  in  the  year  1584  or  1585,  he  had  a 
natural  protector  at  the  Blackfriars'  Theatre ;  for  Greene, 
his  townsman,  and  probably  his  relative,  figured  there  as 
an  actor  of  some  reputation,  and  also  as  the  author  of  sev- 
eral comedies.  According  to  Aubrey,  it  was  with  a  posi- 
tive intention  to  devote  himself  to  the  stage  that  ShaKs- 
peare  came  to  London ;  and,  even  if  Greene's  influence 


38  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

had  not  teen  able  to  secure  his  reception  in  a  higher  char« 
acter  than  that  of  call-hoy,  it  is  easy  to  understand  tho 
rapid  strides  with  which  a  superior  man  reaches  the  sum- 
mit of  any  career  into  which  he  has  once  obtained  admis- 
sion. But  it  would  he  more  difficult  to  conceive  that,  with 
Greene's  example  and  protection,  a  theatrical  career,  or, 
at  least,  a  desire  to  try  his  powers  as  an  actor,  would  not 
have  been  Shakspeare's  first  ambition.  The  time  had 
come  when  mental  ambitions  were  kindling  on  every  side ; 
and  dramatic  poetry,  which  had  long  been  numbered 
among  the  national  pleasures,  had  at  length  acquired  in 
England  that  importance  which  calls  for  the  production 
of  master-pieces. 

Nowhere  on  the  Continent  has  a  taste  for  poetry  been 
so  constant  and  popular  as  in  Great  Britain.  Germany 
has  had  her  Minnesingers,  France  her  Troubadours  and 
Trouveres  ;  but  these  graceful  apparitions  of  nascent  poet- 
ry rapidly  ascended  to  the  superior  regions  of  social  order, 
and  vanished  before  long.  The  English  minstrels  are  visi- 
ble, throughout  the  history  of  their  country,  in  a  position 
which  has  been  more  or  less  brilliant  according  to  circum- 
stances, but  which  has  always  been  recognized  by  society, 
established  by  its  acts,  and  determined  by  its  rules.  They 
appear  as  a  regularly-organized  corporation,  with  its  spe- 
cial business,  influence,  and  rights,  penetrating  into  all 
ranks  of  the  nation,  and  associating  in  the  diversions  of  the 
people  as  well  as  in  the  festivities  of  their  chiefs.  Heirs 
of  the  Breton  bards  and  the  Scandinavian  Scalds,  with 
whom  they  are  incessantly  confounded  by  English  writers 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  minstrels  of  Old  England  retained 
for  a  considerable  length  of  time  a  portion  of  the  author- 
ity of  their  predecessors.  "When  afterward  subjugated, 
and  quickly  deserted,  Great  Britain  did  not,  like  Gaul, 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  39 

receive  a  universal  and  profound  impression  of  Roman 
civilization.  The  Britons  disappeared  or  retired  before  the 
Saxons  and  Angles  ;  after  this  period,  the  conquest  of  the 
Saxons  by  the  Danes,  and  of  the  united  Danes  and  Saxons 
by  the  Normans,  only  commingled  upon  the  soil  a  number 
of  peoples  of  common  origin,  of  analogous  habits,  and  al- 
most equally  barbarous  character.  The  vanquished  were 
oppressed,  but  they  had  not  to  humiliate  their  weakness 
before  the  brutal  manners  of  their  masters ;  and  the  vic- 
tors were  not  compelled  to  submit  by  degrees  to  the  rule 
of  the  more  polished  manners  of  their  new  subjects.  Among 
a  nation  so  homogeneous,  and  throughout  the  vicissitudes 
of  its  destiny,  even  Christianity  did  not  perform  the  part 
which  devolved  upon  it  elsewhere.  On  adopting  the  faith 
of  Saint  Remi,  the  Franks  found  in  Gaul  a  Roman  clergy, 
wealthy  and  influential,  who  necessarily  undertook  to  mod- 
ify the  institutions,  ideas,  and  manner  of  life,  as  well  as 
the  religious  belief  of  the  conquerors.  The  Christian  clergy 
of  the  Saxons  were  tkemselves  Saxons,  long  as  uncouth 
and  barbarous  as  the  members  of  their  flocks,  but  never 
estranged  from,  or  indifferent  to,  their  feelings  and  recol- 
lections. Thus  the  young  civilization  of  the  North  grew 
up,  in  England,  in  all  the  simplicity  and  energy  of  its  na- 
ture, and  in  complete  independence  of  the  borrowed  forms 
and  foreign  sap  which  it  elsewhere  received  from  the  old 
civilization  of  the  South.  This  important  fact,  which  per- 
haps determined  the  course  of  political  institutions  in  En- 
gland, could  not  fail  to  exercise  great  influence  over  the 
character  and  development  of  her  poetry  also. 

A  nation  that  proceeds  in  such  strict  conformity  to  its 
first  impulse,  and  never  ceases  to  belong  entirely  to  itself, 
naturally  regards  itself  with  looks  of  complacency.  Tho 
feeling  of  property  attaches,  in  its  view,  to  all  that  affects 


40  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

it,  and  the  joy  of  pride  to  all  that  it  produces.  Its  poets, 
when  inspired  to  relate  to  it  its  own  deeds,  and  describe 
its  own  customs,  are  certain  of  never  meeting  with  an  ear 
that  will  not  listen  or  a  heart  that  will  not  respond  ;  their 
art  is  at  once  the  charm  of  the  lower  classes  of  society, 
and  the  honor  of  the  most  exalted  ranks.  More  than  in 
any  other  country,  poetry  is  united  with  important  events 
in  the  ancient  history  of  England.  It  introduced  Alfred 
into  the  tents  of  the  Danish  leaders  ;  four  centuries  before, 
it  had  enabled  the  Saxon  Bardulph  to  penetrate  into  the 
city  of  York,  in  which  the  Britons  held  his  brother  Colgrim 
besieged  ;  sixty  years  later,  it  accompanied  Anlaf,  king  of 
the  Danes,  into  the  camp  of  Athelstan ;  and,  in  the  twelfth 
century,  it  achieved  the  honor  of  effecting  the  deliverance 
of  Richard  Cceur-de-Lion.  These  old  narratives,  and  a 
host  of  others,  however  doubtful  they  may  be  supposed, 
prove  at  least  how  present  to  the  imagination  of  the  peo- 
ple were  the  art  and  profession  of  the  minstrel.  A  fact  of 
more  modern  date  fully  attests  the  power  which  these 
popular  poets  long  exercised  over  the  multitude :  Hugh, 
first  Earl  of  Chester,  had  decreed,  in  the  foundation-deed 
of  the  Abbey  of  St.  Werburgh,  that  the  fair  of  Chester 
should  be,  during  its  whole  duration,  a  place  of  asylum  for 
criminals,  excepting  in  the  case  of  crimes  committed  in  the 
fair  itself.  In  the  year  1212,  during  the  reign  of  King 
John,  and  at  the  time  of  this  fair,  Ranulph,  last  Earl  of 
Chester,  traveling  into  "Wales,  was  attacked  by  the  "Welsh, 
and  compelled  to  retire  to  his  castle  of  Rothelan,  in  which 
they  besieged  him.  He  succeeded  in  informing  Roger,  or 
John  de  Lacy,  the  constable  of  Chester,  of  his  position ; 
this  nobleman  interested  the  minstrels  who  had  come  to 
the  fair  in  the  cause  of  the  earl ;  and  they  so  powerfully 
excited,  with  their  songs,  the  multitude  of  outlawed  per> 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  41 

sons  then  collected  at  Chester  beneath  the  safeguard  of  the 
privilege  of  St.  Werburgh,  that  they  marched  forth,  under 
the  command  of  young  Hugh  Button,  the  steward  of  Lord 
De  Lacy,  to  deliver  the  earl  from  his  perilous  situation. 
It  was  not  necessary  to  come  to  blows,  for  the  "Welsh, 
when  they  beheld  the  approach  of  this  troop,  thought  it 
was  an  army,  and  raised  the  siege  ;  and  the  grateful  Ra- 
nulph  immediately  granted,  to  the  minstrels  of  the  county 
of  Chester,  various  privileges,  which  they  were  to  enjoy 
under  the  protection  of  the  Lacy  family,  who  afterward 
transferred  this  patronage  to  the  Duttons  and  their. de- 
scendants.* 

Nor  do  the  chronicles  alone  bear  witness  to  the  number 
and  popularity  of  the  minstrels  ;  from  time  to  time  they 
are  mentioned  in  the  acts  of  the  Legislature.  In  1315, 
during  the  reign  of  Edward  II.,  the  Royal  Council,  being 
desirous  to  suppress  vagabondage,  forbade  all  persons, 
"  except  minstrels,"  to  stop  at  the  houses  of  prelates,  earls, 
and  barons,  to  eat  and  drink ;  nor  might  there  enter,  on 
each  day,  into  such  houses,  "  more  than  three  or  four 
minstrels  of  honor,"  unless  the  proprietor  himself  invited 
a  greater  number.  Into  the  abodes  of  persons  of  humbler 
rank  even  minstrels  might  not  enter  unless  they  were  in- 
vited ;  and  they  must  then  content  themselves  "  with  eat- 
ing and  drinking,  and  with  such  courtesy"  as  it  should 
please  the  master  of  the  house  to  add  thereto.     In  1316, 

*  During  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  when  fallen  from  their  ancient  splen- 
dor, but  still  of  such  importance  that  the  law,  which  would  no  longer  pro- 
tect them,  was  obliged  to  pay  attention  to  them,  the  minstrels  were,  by  an 
act  of  Parliament,  classed  in  the  same  category  with  beggars  and  vaga- 
bonds ;  but  an  exception  was  made  in  favor  of  those  protected  by  the  Dut- 
ton  family,  and  they  continued  freely  to  exercise  their  profession  and  privi- 
leges, in  honorable  remembrance  of  the  service  by  which  they  had  gained 
them 


42  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

while  Edward  was  celebrating  the  festival  of  Whitsuntide, 
at  Westminster,  with  his  peers,  a  woman,  "  dressed  in  the 
manner  of  minstrels,"  and  mounted  on  a  large  horse,  ca- 
parisoned "  according  to  the  custom  of  minstrels,"  entered 
the  banqueting-hall,  rode  round  the  tables,  laid  a  letter 
before  the  king,  and,  quickly  turning  her  horse,  went  away 
with  a  salute  to  the  company.  The  letter  displeased  the 
king,  whom  it  blamed  for  having  lavished  liberalities  on 
his  favorites  to  the  detriment  of  his  faithful  servants  ;  and 
the  porters  were  reprimanded  for  having  allowed  the  wom- 
an to  come  in.  Their  excuse  was,  "that  it  was  not  the 
custom  ever  to  refuse  to  minstrels  admission  into  the  royal 
houses."  During  the  reign  of  Henry  VI.,  we  find  that  the 
minstrels,  who  undertook  to  impart  mirth  to  festivals,  were 
frequently  better  paid  than  the  priests  who  came  to  solem- 
nize them.  To  the  festival  of  the  Holy  Cross,  at  Abing- 
don, came  twelve  priests  and  twelve  minstrels  ;  each  of  the 
former  received  "  fourpence,"  and  each  of  the  latter  "two 
shillings  and  fourpence."  In  1441,  eight  priests,  from 
Coventry,  who  had  been  invited  to  Maxtoke  Priory  to  per- 
form an  annual  service,  received  two  shillings  each ;  but 
the  six  minstrels  who  had  been  appointed  to  amuse  the 
assembled  monks  in  the  refectory  had  four  shillings  a  piece, 
and  supped  with  the  sub-prior  in  the  "  painted  chamber," 
which  was  lighted  up  for  the  occasion  with  eight  large 
flambeaux  of  wax,  the  expense  of  which  is  set  down  in  due 
form  in  the  accounts  of  the  convent. 

Thus,  wherever  festivities  took  place,  wherever  men 
gathered  together  for  amusement,  in  convents  and  fairs, 
in  the  public  highways  and  in  the  castles  of  the  nobility, 
the  minstrels  were  always  present,  mixing  with  all  class- 
es of  society,  and  charming,  with  their  songs  and  tales, 
the  inhabitants  of  the  country  and  the  dwellers  in  towns, 


SHAKSPEARE   AND  HIS  TIMES.  4.1 

the  rich  and  the  poor,  the  farmers,  the  monks,  and  the  no. 
bles  of  high  degree.  Their  arrival  was  at  once  an  event 
and  a  custom,  their  intervention  a  luxury  and  a  necessity ; 
at  no  time,  and  in  no  place,  could  they  fail  to  collect 
around  them  an  eager  crowd  ;  they  were  protected  hy  the 
public  favor,  and  Parliament  often  had  them  under  con- 
sideration, sometimes  to  recognize  their  rights,  but  more 
frequently  to  repress  the  abuses  occasioned  by  their  wan- 
dering life  and  increasing  numbers. 

What,  then,  were  the  manners  of  the  people  who  took 
such  enthusiastic  delight  in  these  amusements  ?  What 
leisure  had  they  for  the  indulgence  of  their  taste  ?  What 
opportunities,  what  festive  occasions  collected  these  men 
so  frequently  together,  and  provided  these  popular  bards 
with  a  multitude  ever  ready  to  listen  and  applaud  ?  That, 
beneath  the  brilliant  sky  of  the  South,  free  from  the  ne- 
cessity of  striving  against  natural  hardships,  invited  by 
the  mildness  of  the  climate  and  the  genial  warmth  of  the 
sun  to  live  in  the  open  air  beneath  the  cooling  shade  of 
their  olive-trees,  devolving  upon  their  slaves  the  perform- 
ance of  all  laborious  duties,  and  uncontrolled  by  any  do- 
mestic habits,  the  Greeks  should  have  thronged  around 
their  rhapsodists,  and,  at  a  later  period,  crowded  their  open 
theatres,  to  yield  their  imagination  to  the  charm  of  the 
simple  narratives  or  pathetic  delineations  of  poetry ;  or 
that  even  in  our  own  day,  under  the  influence  of  their 
scorching  atmosphere  and  idle  life,  the  Arabs,  gathering 
round  an  animated  story-teller,  should  spend  entire  days 
in  following  the  course  of  his  adventures — all  this  we  can 
understand  and  explain ;  there  the  sky  is  not  inclement, 
and  material  life  requires  none  of  those  efforts  which  pre 
vent  men  from  giving  themselves  up  to  pleasures  of  this 
kind  ;  nor  are  their  institutions  opposed  to  their  indulgence 


44  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

in  such  enjoyments,  but  all  things  combine,  on  the  con- 
trary, to  render  their  attainment  easy  and  natural,  and  to 
occasion  numerous  meetings,  frequent  festivities,  and  pro* 
tracted  periods  of  leisure.  But  it  was  in  a  northern  cli- 
mate, beneath  the  sway  of  a  cold  and  severe  nature,  in  a 
society  partially  subject  to  the  feudal  system,  and  among 
a  people  living  a  difficult  and  laborious  life,  that  the  En- 
glish minstrels  found  repeated  opportunities  for  the  exer- 
cise of  their  art,  and  were  always  sure  that  a  crowd  would 
collect  to  witness  their  performance. 

The  reason  of  this  is,  that  the  habits  of  England,  being 
formed  by  the  influence  of  the  same  causes  that  led  to  the 
establishment  of  her  political  institutions,  early  assumed 
that  character  of  agitation  and  publicity  which  calls  for 
the  appearance  of  a  popular  poetry.  In  other  countries, 
the  general  tendency  was  to  the  separation  of  the  various 
social  conditions,  and  even  to  the  isolation  of  individuals. 
In  England,  every  thing  combined  to  bring  them  into  con- 
tact and  connection.  The  principle  of  common  delibera- 
tion upon  matters  of  common  interest,  which  is  the  foun- 
dation of  all  liberty,  prevailed  in  all  the  institutions  of  En- 
gland, and  presided  over  all  the  customs  of  the  country. 
The  freemen  of  the  rural  districts  and  the  towns  never 
ceased  to  meet  together  for  the  discussion  and  transaction 
of  their  common  affairs.  The  county  courts,  the  jury,  cor- 
porate associations,  and  elections  of  all  kinds,  multiplied 
occasions  of  meeting,  and  diffused  in  every  direction  the 
habits  of  public  life.  That  hierarchical  organization  of  feu- 
dalism, which,  on  the  Continent,  extended  from  the  poor- 
est gentleman  to  the  most  powerful  monarch,  and  was  in- 
cessantly stimulating  the  vanity  of  every  man  to  leave  hia 
own  sphere  and  pass  into  the  rank  of  suzerain,  was  never 
completely  established  in  Great  Britain.     The  nobility  o| 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  45 

the  second  order,  by  separating  themselves  from  the  great 
barons,  in  order  to  take  their  place  at  the  head  of  tho 
commons,  returned,  so  to  speak,  into  the  body  of  the  na- 
tion, and  adopted  its  manners  as  well  as  assumed  its  rights. 
It  was  on  his  own  estate,  among  his  tenants,  farmers,  and 
servants,  that  the  gentleman  established  his  importance ; 
and  he  based  it  upon  the  cultivation  of  his  lands  and  the 
discharge  of  those  local  magistracies  which,  by  placing 
him  in  connection  with  the  whole  of  the  population,  ne- 
cessitated the  concurrence  of  public  opinion,  and  provided 
the  adjacent  district  with  a  centre  around  which  it  might 
rally.  Thus,  while  active  rights  brought  equals  into  com- 
munication, rural  life  created  a  bond  of  union  between  the 
superior  and  his  inferior ;  and  agriculture,  by  the  commu- 
nity of  its  interests  and  labors,  bound  the  whole  popula- 
tion together  by  ties,  which,  descending  successively  from 
class  to  class,  were  in  some  sort  terminated  and  sealed  in 
the  earth,  the  immutable  basis  of  their  union. 

Such  a  state  of  society  leads  to  competence  and  con- 
fidence ;  and  where  competence  reigns  and  confidence  is 
felt,  the  necessity  of  common  enjoyment  soon  arises.  Men 
who  are  accustomed  to  meet  together  for  business  will 
meet  together  for  pleasure  also  ;  and  when  the  serious  life 
of  the  land-owner  is  spent  among  his  fields,  he  does  not  re- 
main a  stranger  to  the  joys  of  the  people  who  cultivate  or 
surround  them.  Continual  and  general  festivals  gave  ani- 
mation to  the  country  life  of  Old  England.  What  was 
their  primary  origin  ?  What  traditions  and  customs  served 
as  their  foundation  ?  How  did  the  progress  of  rustic  pros- 
perity lead  gradually  to  this  joyous  movement  of  meet- 
ings, banquets,  and  games  ?  It  is  of  little  use  to  know 
the  cause  ;  the  fact  itself  is  most  worthy  of  our  observa- 
tion ;  and  in  the  sixteenth  century,  when  civil  discord 


46  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

had  been  brought  to  a  term,  we  may  follow  it  in  all  it3 
brilliant  details.  At  Christmas,  before  the  gates  of  the 
castles,  the  herald,  bearing  the  arms  of  the  family,  thrice 
shouted  Largesse! 

"  Then  opened  wide  the  baron's  hall 
To  vassal,  tenant,  serf,  and  all ; 
Power  laid  his  rod  of  rule  aside, 
And  ceremony  doffed  his  pride. 
The  heir,  with  roses  in  his  shoes, 
That  night  might  village  partner  choose ; 
The  lord,  undelegating,  share 
The  vulgar  game  of  'post  and  pair.'  "* 

Who  shall  describe  the  general  joy  and  hospitality,  the 
roaring  fire  in  the  hall,  the  well-spread  table,  the  beef  and 
pudding,  and  the  abundance  of  good  cheer  which  was  then 
to  be  found  in  the  house  of  the  farmer  as  well  as  in  the 
mansion  of  the  gentleman.  The  dance,  when  the  head 
began  to  swim  with  wassail ;  the  songs  of  minstrels,  and 
tales  of  by-gone  days,  when  the  party  had  become  tired  of 
dancing,  were  the  pleasures  which  then  reigned  through- 
out England,  when 

"All  hail'd,  with  uncontroll'd  delight 
And  general  voice,  the  happy  night, 
That  to  the  cottage,  as  the  crown, 
Brought  tidings  of  salvation  down. 

'Twas  Christmas  broach'd  the  mightiest  ale ; 

'Twas  Christmas  told  the  merriest  tale ; 

A  Christmas  gambol  oft  could  cheer 

The  poor  man's  heart  through  half  the  year."t 

These  Christmas  festivities  lasted  for  twelve  days,  va- 
ried by  a  thousand  pleasures,  kindled  by  the  good  wishes 
and  presents  of  New  Year's  Day,  and  terminated  by  the 
Feast  of  Kings  on  Twelfth  Day.     But  soon  after  came 

*  Scott's  "Marmion,"  introduction  to  Canto  sixth.  t  Ibid. 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  47 

Plow  Monday,  the  day  on  which  work  was  resumed,  and 

the  first  day  of  labor  also  was  marked  by  a  feast. 

"  Good  housewives,  whom  God  has  enriched  enough, 
Forget  not  the  feasts  that  belong  to  the  plow," 

says  old  Tusser,  in  his  quaint  rural  poems.*  The  spindle 
also  had  its  festival.  The  harvest  feast  was  one  of -equal- 
ity, and  an  avowal,  as  it  were,  of  those  mutual  necessi- 
ties which  bring  men  into  union.  On  that  day,  masters 
and,  servants  collected  round  the  same  table,  and,  min- 
gling in  the  same  conversation,  did  not  appear  to  be 
brought  into  contact  with  each  other  by  the  complaisance 
of  a  superior  desirous  of  rewarding  his  inferior,  but  by  an 
equal  right  to  the  pleasures  of  the  day  : 

"  For  all  that  clear'd  the  crop  or  till'd  the  ground 
Are  guests  by  right  of  custom — old  and  young  ; 

*-M»  «M-  Jl»  J£. 

TV  ~Jr  rft"  TT 

Here  once  a  year  distinction  low'rs  its  crest, 

The  master,  servant,  and  the  merry  guest, 

Are  equal  all ;  and  round  the  happy  ring 

The  reaper's  eyes  exulting  glances  fling, 

And,  warm'd  with  gratitude,  he  quits  his  place, 

With  sun-burn'd  hands  and  ale-enliven'd  face, 

Refills  the  jug  his  honor'd  host  to  tend, 

To  serve  at  once  the  master  and  the  friend ; 

Proud  thus  to  meet  his  smiles,  to  share  his  tale, 

His  nuts,  his  conversation,  and  his  ale. 

Such  were  the  days — of  days  long  past  I  sing."t 

Sowing-time,  sheep-shearing,  indeed,  every  epoch  of 
interest  in  rural  life,  was  celebrated  by  similar  meetings 
and  banquets,  and  by  games  of  all  kinds.  But  what  day 
could  equal  the  first  of  May,  brilliant  with  the  joys  nf 

*  Thomas  Tusser,  a  poet  of  the  sixteenth  century,  was  born  about  1515, 
and  died  in  1583.  He  was  the  author  of  some  English  Georgics,  undei 
the  title  of  "  Five  hundreth  points  of  good  husbandry,  united  to  as  many 
of  good  huswifery."         t  Bloomfield's  "Farmer's  Boy,"  p. 40,  cd    1845. 


48  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

youth  and  the  hopes  of  the  year  ?  Scarce  had  the  rising 
sun  announced  the  arrival  of  this  festive  morn,  than  the 
entire  youthful  population  hastened  into  the  woods  and 
meadows,  to  the  river-bank  and  hill-side,  accompanied  by 
the  sounds  of  music,  to  gather  their  harvest  of  flowers ; 
and,  returning  laden  with  hawthorn  and  verdure,  adorned 
the  doors  and  windows  of  their  houses  with  their  spoils, 
covered  with  blossoms  the  May-pole  which  they  had  cut 
in  the  forest,  and  crowned  with  garlands  the  horns  of  the 
oxen  which  were  to  drag  it  in  triumph  through  the  village. 
Herrick,  a  contemporary  of  Shakspeare,  thus  invites  his 
mistress  to  go  a  Maying : 

"  Get  up,  get  up  for  shame,  the  blooming  morn 
Upon  her  wings  presents  the  god  unshorn. 

See  how  Aurora  throws  her  fair 

Fresh-quilted  colors  through  the  air ; 

Get  up,  sweet  slug-a-bed,  and  see 

The  dew  bespangling  herb  and  tree. 
Each  flower  has  wept,  and  bow'd  toward  the  east 
Above  an  hour  since,  yet  you  are  not  dress'd, 

Nay,  not  so  much  as  out  of  bed ; 

When  all  the  birds  have  matins  said, 

And  sung  their  thankful  hymns  :  'tis  sin, 

Nay,  profanation,  to  keep  in, 
When,  as  a  thousand  virgins  on  this  day, 
Spring  sooner  than  the  lark  to  fetch  in  May. 

Come,  my  Corinna,  come ;  and,  coming,  mark 
How  each  field  turns  a  street,  each  street  a  park 

Made  green,  and  trimm'd  with  trees ;  see  how 

Devotion  gives  each  house  a  bough 

Or  branch ;  each  porch,  each  door,  ere  this, 

An  ark,  a  tabernacle  is, 
Made  up  of  white  thorn  neatly  interwove, 
As  if  here  were  those  cooler  shades  of  love." 

The  elegance  of  the  cottages  on  May  morning  was  im« 
itated  by  the  castles ;  and  the  young  gentlefolks,  as  well 
as  the  lads  and  maidens  of  the  village,  went  forth  into  the 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES  4» 

fields  in  search  of  flowers.  Joy  is  sure  to  introduce  equal- 
ity into  pleasures  ;  the  symbols  of  joy  never  vary,  and  are 
changed  as  little  by  difference  of  rank  as  by  difference  of 
season.  Here  enjoyment,  led  by  abundance,  seems  to 
spend  the  year  in  continual  festivities.  Just  as  the  firs* 
of  May  displays  its  profusion  of  verdure,  as  sheap-shearing 
fills  the  streets  with  flowers,  and  harvest-home  is  adorned 
with  ears  of  corn,  so  Christmas  will  decorate  the  walls 
with  ivy,  holly,  and  evergreen.  Just  as  dances,  races, 
shows,  and  rustic  sports  cause  the  sky  of  spring  to  re- 
sound with  their  joyous  tones,  so  games  in  which 

"  White  shirts  supplied  the  masquerade, 
And  smutted  cheeks  the  visors  made," 

will  waken  the  echoes,  on  the  cold  December  nights,  with 
shouts  of  gayety ;  and  the  May-pole  and  Christmas  log 
will  alike  be  borne  in  triumph  and  extolled  in  song. 

Amid  these  games,  festivals,  and  banquets,  at  these  in- 
numerable friendly  meetings,  and  in  this  joyous  and  ha- 
bitual conviviality  (to  use  the  national  expression),  the 
minstrels  took  their  place  and  sang  their  songs.  The  sub- 
jects of  these  songs  were  the  traditions  of  the  country,  the 
adventures  of  popular  heroes  as  well  as  of  noble  cham- 
pions, the  exploits  of  Robin  Hood  against  the  sheriff  of 
Nottingham,  as  well  as  the  conflicts  of  the  Percies  with 
the  Douglas  clan.  Thus  the  public  manners  called  for 
poetry ;  thus  poetry  originated  in  the  manners  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  became  connected  with  all  the  interests,  and  with 
the  entire  existence,  of  a  population  accustomed  to  live,  to 
act,  to  prosper,  and  to  rejoice  in  common. 

How  could  dramatic  poetry  have  remained  unknown  to 
a  people  of  such  a  character,  so  frequently  assembling  to- 
gether, and  so  fond  of  holidays  ?     "We  have  every  reason 

tc  believe  that  it  was  more  than  once  introduced  into  the 

C 


50  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

games  of  the  minstrels.  The  ancient  writers  speak  of 
them  under  the  names  of  mimi,  joculatores,  and  histri- 
ones.  Women  were  frequently  connected  with  their 
bands  ;  and  several  of  their  ballads,  among  others  that  of 
"  The  Nut-brown  Maid,"  are  evidently  in  the  form  of  dia- 
logue. The  minstrels,  however,  rather  formed  the  nation- 
al taste,  and  directed  it  to  the  drama,  than  originated  the 
drama  itself.  The  first  attempts  at  a  true  theatrical  per- 
formance are  difficult  and  expensive.  The  co-operation 
of  a  public  power  is  indispensable ;  and  it  is  only  in  im- 
portant and  general  solemnities  that  the  effect  produced 
by  the  play  can  possibly  correspond  to  the  efforts  of  imag- 
ination and  labor  which  it  has  cost.  England,  like  France, 
Italy,  and  Spain,  was  indebted  for  her  first  theatrical  per- 
formances to  the  festivals  of  the  clergy  ;  only  they  were, 
it  would  appear,  of  earlier  origin  in  that  country  than 
elsewhere.  The  performance  of  Mysteries  in  England  can 
be  traced  back  as  far  as  the  twelfth  century,  and  proba- 
bly originated  at  a  still  earlier  period.  But  in  France, 
the  clergy,  after  having  erected  theatres,  were  not  slow  to 
denounce  them.  They  had  claimed  the  privilege  in  the 
hope  of  being  able,  by  the  means  of  such  performances, 
to  maintain  or  stimulate  the  conquests  of  the  faith ;  but 
ere  long  they  began  to  dread  their  effects,  and  abandoned 
their  employment.  The  English  clergy  were  more  inti- 
mately associated  with  the  tastes,  habits,  and  diversions 
of  the  people.  The  Church,  also,  took  advantage  of  that 
universal  conviviality  which  I  have  just  described.  Was 
any  great  religious  ceremony  to  be  celebrated  ?  or  was 
any  parish  in  want  of  funds  ?  A  Church-ale*  was  an- 
nounced ;  the  church-wardens  browed  some  beer,  and  sold 

*  Also  called  Whitsun-ale.      Beer  was  so  intimately  conneoted  with  the 
popular  festivals  that  the  word  ale  bad  beeome  synonymous  with  holiday. 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  i>l 

it  to  the  people  at  the  door  of  the  church,  and  to  the  rich 
in  the  interior  of  the  church  itself.  Every  one  contributed 
his  money,  presence,  provisions,  and  mirth  to  the  festival ; 
the  joy  of  good  works  was  augmented  by  the  pleasures  of 
good  cheer,  and  the  piety  of  the  rich  rejoiced  to  exceed, 
by  their  gifts,  the  price  demanded.  It  often  happened 
that  several  parishes  united  to  hold  the  Church-ale  by 
turns  for  the  profit  of  each.  The  ordinary  games  followed 
these  meetings ;  the  minstrel,  the  morris-dance,  and  the 
performance  of  Robin  Hood,  with  Maid  Marian  and  the 
Hobby-horse,  were  never  absent.  The  seasons  of  confes- 
sion, Easter  and  Whitsuntide,  also  furnished  the  Church 
and  the  people  with  periodical  opportunities  for  common 
rejoicings.  Thus  familiar  with  the  popular  manners,  the 
English  clergy,  when  offering  new  pleasures  to  the  people, 
thought  less  of  modifying  them  than  of  turning  them  to 
account ;  and  when  they  perceived  the  fondness  of  the 
people  for  dramatic  performances,  whatever  the  subject 
might  be,  they  had  no  idea  of  renouncing  so  powerful  a 
means  of  gaining  popularity.  In  1378,  the  choristers  of 
St.  Paul's  complained  to  Richard  II.  that  certain  ignorant 
fellows  had  presumed  to  perform  histories  from  the  Old 
Testament,  "  to  the  great  prejudice  of  the  clergy."  After 
this  period,  the  Mysteries  and  Moralities  never  ceased  to 
be,  both  in  churches  and  convents,  a  favorite  amusement 
of  the  nation,  and  a  leading  occupation  of  the  ecclesiastics. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  an  Earl  of  Nor* 
thumberland,  who  was  a  great  protector  of  literature,  es- 
tablished, as  a  rule  of  his  household,  that  the  sole  business 
of  one  of  his  chaplains  should  be  to  compose  interludes. 
Toward  the  end  of  his  reign,  Henry  VIII.  forbade  the 
Church  to  continue  these  performances,  winch,  in  the 
wavering  state  of  his  belief,  were  displeasing  to  the  king, 


52  SHAKSPEARL  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

and  offended  him  sometimes  as  a  Catholic  and  sometimes 
as  a  Protestant.  But  they  reappeared  after  his  death, 
and  were  sanctioned  by  such  high  authority,  that  the 
young  king,  Edward  VI.,  himself  composed  a  piece  againss 
the  Papists,  entitled  "  The  Whore  of  Babylon ;"  and 
Q,ueen  Mary,  in  her  turn,  commanded  the  performance; 
in  the  churches,  of  popular  dramas  favorable  to  Popery. 
Finally,  in  1569,  we  find  the  choristers  of  St.  Paul's, 
"  clothed  in  silk  and  satin,"  playing  profane  pieces  in  Eliz- 
abeth's chapel,  in  the  different  royal  houses ;  and  they 
were  so  well  skilled  in  their  profession,  that,  in  Shaks- 
peare's  time,  they  constituted  one  of  the  best  and  most 
popular  troops  of  actors  in  London. 

Far,  therefore,  from  opposing  or  seeking  to  change  the 
taste  of  the  people  for  theatrical  representations,  the  En- 
glish clergy  hastened  to  gratify  it.  Their  influence,  it  is 
true,  gave  to  the  works  which  they  brought  on  the  stage 
a  more  serious  and  moral  character  than  was  possessed  in 
other  countries  by  compositions  dependent  upon  the  whims 
of  the  public,  and  cursed  by  the  anathemas  of  the  Church. 
Notwithstanding  its  coarseness  of  ideas  and  language,  the 
English  drama,  which  became  so  licentious  in  the  reign 
of  Charles  II.,  appears  chaste  and  pure  in  the  middle  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  when  compared  to  the  first  essays 
of  dramatic  composition  in  France.  But  it  did  not  the 
less  continue  to  be  popular  in  its  character,  ignorant  of  all 
scientific  regularity,  and  faithful  to  the  national  taste. 
The  clergy  would  have  lost  much  by  endeavoring  to  sup- 
press theatrical  performances.  They  possessed  no  exclu- 
sive privilege  ;  and  numerous  competitors  vied  with  them 
for  applause  and  success.  Robin  Hood  and  Maid  Marian, 
the  Lord  of  Misrule  and  the  Hobby-Horse,  had  not  yet  dis- 
appeared.    Traveling  actors,  attached  to  the  service  of  the 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  53 

powerful  nobles,  traversed  the  counties  of  England  under 
their  auspices,  and  obtained,  by  favor  of  a  gratuitous  per- 
formance before  the  mayor,  aldermen,  and  their  friends, 
the  right  of  exercising  their  profession  in  the  various  town?, 
the  court-yards  of  inns  usually  serving  as  their  theatre 
As  they  were  in  a  position  to  give  greater  pomp  to  their 
exhibitions,  and  thus  to  attract  a  larger  number  of  spec- 
tators, the  clergy  struggled  successfully  against  their  ri- 
vals, and  even  maintained  a  marked  predominance,  but 
always  upon  condition  of  adapting  their  representations 
to  the  feelings,  habits,  and  imaginative  character  of  the 
people,  who  had  been  formed  to  a  taste  for  poetry  by  their 
own  festivals  and  by  the  songs  of  the  minstrels. 

Such  were  the  condition  and  tendency  of  dramatic  po- 
etry, when,  at  the  commencement  of  the  reign  of  Eliza- 
beth, it  appeared  threatened  by  a  two-fold  danger.  As  it 
daily  became  more  popular,  it  at  last  awakened  the  anxiety 
of  religious  severity  and  fired  the  ambition  of  literary  ped- 
antry. The  national  taste  found  itself  attacked,  almost 
simultaneously,  by  the  anathemas  of  the  Reformers  and 
the  pretensions  of  men  of  letters. 

If  these  two  classes  of  enemies  had  united  in  their  op- 
position to  the  drama,  it  would,  perhaps,  have  fallen  a  vic- 
tim to  their  attacks.  But  while  the  Puritans  wished  to 
destroy  it,  men  of  letters  only  desired  to  get  it  into  their 
own  hands.  It  was,  therefore,  defended  by  the  latter 
when  the  former  inveighed  against  its  existence.  Some- 
influential  citizens  of  London  obtained  from  Elizabeth  the 
temporary  suppression  of  stage-plays  within  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  civic  authorities  ;  but,  beyond  that  jurisdiction, 
the  Blackfriars'  Theatre  and  the  court  of  the  Queen  still 
retained  their  dramatic  privileges.  The  Puritans,  by  their 
sermons,  may  have  alarmed  some  few  consciences,  and  oo- 


54  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

casioned  some  few  scruples  ;  and  perhaps,  also,  some  sud- 
den conversions  may  here  and  there  have  deprived  the  May- 
day games  of  the  performance  of  the  Hobby-Horse,  their 
greatest  ornament,  and  the  special  object  of  the  wrath  ol 
the  preachers.  But  the  time  of  the  power  of  the  Puritans 
had  not  yet  arrived,  and,  to  obtain  decisive  success,  it  wai 
too  much  to  have  to  overcome  at  once  the  national  taste 
and  the  taste  of  the  court. 

Elizabeth's  court  would  well  have  liked  to  be  classical 
Theological  discussions  had  made  learning  fashionable. 
At  that  time  it  was  an  essential  part  of  the  education  of 
a  noble  lady  to  be  able  to  read  Greek,  and  to  distill  strong 
waters.  The  known  taste  of  the  queen  had  added  to  these 
the  gallantries  of  ancient  mythology.  "  When  she  paid  a 
visit  at  the  house  of  any  of  her  nobility,"  says  "Warton, 
"  at  entering  the  hall  she  was  saluted  by  the  Penates,  and 
conducted  to  her  privy-chamber  by  Mercury.  The  pages 
of  the  family  were  converted  into  wood-nymphs,  who 
peeped  from  every  bower ;  and  the  footmen  gamboled 
over  the  lawns  in  the  figure  of  Satyrs.  "When  she  rode 
through  the  streets  of  Norwich,  Cupid,  at  the  command 
of  the  mayor  and  aldermen,  advancing  from  a  group  of 
gods  who  had  left  Olympus  to  grace  the  procession,  gave 
her  a  golden  arrow,  which,  under  the  influence  of  such  ir- 
resistible charms,  was  sure  to  wound  the  most  obdurate 
heart:  la  gift,'  says  Holinshed,  'which  her  majesty,  now 
verging  to  her  fiftieth  year,  received  very  thankfully.'  "* 

But  the  court  may  strive  in  vain  ;  it  is  not  the  purveyor 
of  its  own  pleasures  ;  it  rarely  makes  choice  of  them,  in- 
vents them  even  less  frequently,  and  generally  receives 
them  at  the  hands  of  men  who  make  it  their  business  tc 
provide  for  its  amusement.     The  empiro  of  classical  lit> 

*  Warton's  "  History  of  English  Poetry,"  vol.  iii.,  p.  492,  493. 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  55 

erature,  which  was  established  in  France  before  the  foun- 
dation of  the  stage,  was  the  work  of  men  of  letters,  who 
derived  protection  from,  and  felt  justly  proud  of,  the  ex- 
clusive possession  of  a  foreign  erudition  which  raised  them 
above  the  rest  of  the  nation.  The  court  of  France  sub- 
mitted to  the  guidance  of  the  men  of  letters  ;  and  the  na- 
tion at  large,  undecided  how  to  act,  and  destitute  of  those 
institutions  which  might  have  given  authority  to  its  hab- 
its and  influence  to  its  tastes,  formed  into  groups,  as  it 
were,  around  the  court.  In  England  the  drama  had  taken 
precedence  of  classic  lore  ;  ancient  history  and  mythology 
found  a  popular  poetry  and  creed  in  possession  of  the 
means  of  delighting  the  minds  of  the  people ;  and  the  study 
of  the  classics,  which  became  known  at  a  late  period,  and 
at  first  only  by  the  medium  of  French  translations,  was 
introduced  as  one  of  those  foreign  fashions  by  which  a  few 
men  may  render  themselves  remarkable,  but  which  take 
root  only  when  they  fall  into  harmonious  accordance  with 
the  national  taste.  The  court  itself  sometimes  affected,  in 
evidence  of  its  attainments,  exclusive  admiration  for  an- 
cient literature  ;  but  as  soon  as  it  stood  in  need  of  amuse- 
ment, it  followed  the  example  of  the  general  public  ;  and, 
indeed,  it  was  not  easy  to  pass  from  the  exhibition  of  a 
bear-baiting  to  the  pretensions  of  classical  severity,  even 
according  to  the  ideas  then  entertained  regarding  it. 

The  stage,  therefore,  remained  under  the  almost  undis- 
puted government  of  the  general  taste;  and  science  at- 
tempted only  very  timid  invasions  of  the  prerogative.  In 
1561,  Thomas  Sackville,  Lord  Buckhurst,  procured  the 
representation,  in  presence  of  Elizabeth,  of  his  tragedy  of 
"  Grorboduc,"  or  "  Forrex  and  Porrex,"  which  critics  have 
considered  as  the  dramatic  glory  of  the  time  preceding 
Shakspeare.     This  was,  in  fact,  the  first  play  which  was 


56  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES 

properly  divided  into  acts  and  scenes,  and  written  through- 
out in  an  elevated  tone ;  but  it  was  far  from  pretending 
to  a  strict  observance  of  the  unities,  and  the  example  of 
a  very  tiresome  work,  in  which  every  thing  was  done  by 
means  of  conversation,  did  not  prove  very  alluring  either 
to  authors  or  actors.  About  the  same  period,  other  pieces 
appeared  on  the  stage,  in  greater  conformity  to  the  nat- 
ural instincts  of  the  country,  such  as  "  The  Pinner  of 
"Wakefield,"  and  "  Jeronimo,  or  the  Spanish  Tragedy  ;" 
and  for  these  the  public  openly  demonstrated  their  prefer- 
ence. Lord  Buckhurst  himself  was  able  to  exercise  no 
influence  over  the  dominant  taste,  except  by  remaining 
faithful  to  it.  His  "  Mirrour  for  Magistrates,"  a  collec- 
tion of  incidents  from  the  history  of  England,  narrated 
in  a  dramatic  form,  passed  rapidly  into  the  hands  of  all 
readers,  and  became  an  inexhaustible  mine  for  poets  to 
draw  from.  Works  of  this  kind  were  best  suited  to  minds 
educated  by  the  songs  of  the  minstrels  ;  and  this  was  the 
erudition  most  relished  by  the  majority  of  the  gentlefolks 
of  the  country,  whose  reading  seldom  extended  beyond  a 
few  collections  of  tales,  ballads,  and  old  chronicles.  The 
drama  fearlessly  appropriated  to  itself  subjects  so  familiar 
to  the  multitude ;  and  historical  plays,  under  the  name 
of  "  Histories,"  delighted  the  English  with  the  narrative 
of  their  own  deeds,  the  pleasant  sound  of  national  names, 
the  exhibition  of  popular  customs,  and  the  delineation  of 
the  mode  of  life  of  all  classes,  which  were  all  comprised 
in  the  political  history  of  a  people  who  have  ever  taken 
part  in  the  administration  of  their  national  affairs. 

Beside  these  national  histories,  some  few  incidents  from 
ancient  histories,  or  the  annals  of  other  nations,  took  their 
place,  commonly  disfigured  by  the  mixture  of  fabulous 
events.     But  neither  authors  nor  public  felt  the  slightest 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES  S 

anxiety  with  regard  to  their  origin  and  nature.  They 
were  invariably  overloaded  with  those  fantastic  details, 
and  those  forms  borrowed  from  the  common  habits  of  lifey 
with  which  children  so  often  decorate  the  objects  which 
they  are  obliged  to  picture  to  themselves  by  the  aid  of 
their  imagination  alone.  Thus  Tamburlaine  appeared  in 
his  chariot  drawn  by  the  kings  whom  he  had  conquered, 
and  complaining  bitterly  of  the  slow  pace  and  miserable 
appearance  of  his  team.  On  the  other  hand,  Vice,  the 
usual  buffoon  of  dramatic  compositions,  performed,  under 
the  name  of  Ambidexter,  the  principal  part  in  Preston's 
tragedy  of  "  Cambyses,"  which  was  thus  converted  into 
a  Morality  which  would  have  been  intolerably  tedious  if 
the  spectators  had  not  had  the  gratification  of  seeing  a 
prevaricating  judge  flayed  alive  upon  the  stage,  by  means 
of  "  a  false  skin,"  as  we  are  duly  informed  by  the  author. 
The  performance,  though  almost  entirely  deficient  in  dec- 
orations and  changes  of  scenery,  was  animated  by  ma- 
terial movement,  and  by  the  representation  of  sensible 
objects.  "When  tragedies  were  performed,  the  stage  was 
hung  with  black ;  and  in  an  inventory  of  the  properties 
of  a  troop  of  comedies,  we  find  enumerated,  "the  Moor's 
limbs,  four  Turks'  heads,  old  Mahomet's  head,  one  wheel 
and  frame  in  the  siege  of  London,  one  great  horse  with 
his  legs,  one  dragon,  one  rock,  one  cage,  one  tomb,  and 
one  hell's  mouth."*  This  is  a  curious  specimen  of  the 
means  of  interest  which  it  was  then  thought  necessary  to 
employ  upon  the  stage. 

And  yet,  at  this  period,  Shakspeare  had  already  ap- 
peared !  and,  before  Shakspeare's  advent,  the  stage  had 
constituted,  not  only  the  chief  gratification  of  the  multi- 
tude, but  the  favorite  amusement  of  the  most  distinguish 
*  Malone's  Shakspeare,  vol.  iii.,  p.  309—313   ed.  1821. 


58  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

ed  men !  Lord  Southampton  went  to  the  theatre  every 
day.  As  early  as  1570,  one,  and  probably  two,  regular 
theatres  existed  in  London.  In  1583,  a  short  time  after 
the  temporary  victory  gained  by  the  Puritans  over  the 
performance  of  stage-plays  in  that  city,  there  were  eight 
troops  of  actors  in  London,  each  of  whom  performed  three 
times  a  week.  In  1592,  that  is,  eight  years  before  the 
time  when  Hardy  at  length  obtained  permission  to  open 
a  theatre  in  Paris,  which  had  previously  been  impossi- 
ble on  account  of  the  useless  privilege  possessed  by  the 
"  Brethren  of  the  Passion,"  an  English  pamphleteer  com- 
plained most  indignantly  of  "  some  shallow-brained  cen- 
surers,"  who  had  dared  "  mightily  to  oppugn"  the  per- 
formance of  plays,  which,  he  says,  are  frequented  by  all 
"  men  that  are  their  own  masters — as  gentlemen  of  the 
Court,  the  Inns  of  Court,  and  the  number  of  captains  and 
soldiers  about  London."*'  Finally,  in  1596,  so  vast  a  mul- 
titude of  persons  went  by  water  to  the  theatres,  which 
were  nearly  all  situated  on  the  banks  of  the  Thames,  that 
it  became  necessary  considerably  to  augment  the  number 
of  boatmen 

A  taste  so  universal  and  so  eager  could  not  long  remain 
satisfied  with  coarse  and  insipid  productions  ;  a  pleasure 
which  is  so  ardently  sought  after  by  the  human  mind, 
calls  for  all  the  efforts  and  all  the  power  of  human  genius, 
This  national  movement  now  stood  in  need  only  of  a  man 
of  genius,  capable  of  receiving  its  impulse,  and  raising  the 
public  to  the  highest  regions  of  art.  By  what  stimulus 
was  Shakspeare  prompted  to  undertake  this  glorious  task  ? 
What  circumstance  revealed  to  him  his  mission  ?  What 
sudden  light  illumined  his  genius  ?     These  questions  we 

*  See  Nash,  "  Pierco  Pcnniless's  Supplication  to  the  Devil,"  p.  59,  re- 
printed by  the  Shakspeare  Society  in  1842. 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  59 

can  not  answer.  ,  Just  as  a  beacon  shines  in  the  night- 
time without  disclosing  to  our  view  the  prop  by  which  it 
is  supported,  so  Shakspeare's  mind  appears  to  us,  in  his 
works,  in  isolation,  as  it  were,  from  his  person.  Scarce- 
ly, throughout  the  long  series  of  the  poet's  successes,  can 
we  discern  any  traces  of  the  man,  and  we  possess  no  in- 
formation whatever  regarding  those  early  times  of  which 
he  alone  was  able  to  give  us  an  account.  As  an  actor,  it 
does  not  appear  that  he  distinguished  himself  above  his 
fellows.  The  poet  is  rarely  adapted  for  action ;  his  strength 
lies  beyond  the  world  of  reality,  and  he  attains  his  lofty 
elevation  only  because  he  does  not  employ  his  powers  in 
bearing  the  burdens  of  earth.  Shakspeare's  commenta- 
tors will  not  consent  to  deny  him  any  of  those  successes 
to  which  he  could  possibly  lay  claim,  and  the  excellent 
advice  which  Hamlet  gives  to  the  actors  at  the  court  of 
Denmark  has  been  quoted  in  support  of  a  theory  that 
Shakspeare  must  have  executed  marvebusly  well  that 
which  he  so  thoroughly  understood.  But  Shakspeare 
showed  equal  acquaintance  with  the  characters  of  great 
kings,  mighty  warriors,  and  consummate  villains,  and  yet 
no  one  would  be  likely  to  conclude  from  this  that  he  was 
capable  of  being  a  Richard  the  Third  or  an  Iago.  For- 
tunately, we  have  reason  to  believe  that  applause,  which 
was  then  so  easily  obtained,  was  not  bestowed  in  a  suffi- 
cient degree  to  tempt  an  ambition  which  the  character  of 
the  young  poet  would  have  rendered  it  too  easy  for  him 
to  satisfy ;  and  Rowe,  his  first  historian,  informs  us  that 
his  dramatic  merits  "  soon  distinguished  him,  if  not  as  an 
extraordinary  actor,  yet  as  an  excellent  writer." 

Years  nevertheless  elapsed  before  Shakspeare  made  his 
appearance  on  the  stage  as  an  author.  He  arrived  in  Lon- 
don in  1584,  and  is  not  known  to  have  engaged  in  any 


60  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

employment  unconnected  with  the  theatre  during  his  resi- 
dence in  the  metropolis ;  but  "  Pericles,"  his  first  work, 
according  to  Dryden,  though  many  of  his  gther  critics  and 
admirers  have  rejected  it  as  spurious,  did  not  appear  until 
1590.  How  was  it  possible  that,  amid  the  novel  scenes 
that  surrounded  him,  his  active  and  fertile  mind,  whose 
rapidity,  according  to  his  contemporaries,  "  equaled  that 
:>f  his  pen,"  could  have  remained  for  six  years  without  pro- 
ducing any  thing  ?  In  1593,  he  published  his  poem  of 
"  Venus  and  Adonis,"  which  he  dedicated  to  Lord  South- 
ampton as  "  the  first  heir  of  his  invention  ;"  and  yet,  dur- 
ing the  two  preceding  years,  two  dramas  which  are  now 
ascribed  to  him  had  achieved  success  upon  the  stage. 
The  composition  of  the  poem  may  have  preceded  them, 
although  the  dedication  was  written  subsequently  to  their 
production ;  but  if  the  "  Venus  and  Adonis"  is  anterior  to 
all  his  dramas,  we  must  come  to  the  conclusion  that,  in 
the  midst  of  his  theatrical  life,  Shakspeare's  eminently 
dramatic  genius  was  able  to  engage  in  other  labors,  and 
that  his  first  productions  were  not  intended  for  the  stage. 
A  more  probable  supposition  is  that  Shakspeare  spent 
his  labor,  at  first,  upon  works  which  were  not  his  own, 
and  which  his  genius,  still  in  its  novitiate,  has  been  un- 
able to  rescue  from  oblivion.  Dramatic  productions,  at 
that  time,  were  less  the  property  of  the  author  who  had 
conceived  them  than  of  the  actors  who  had  received  them. 
This  is  always  the  case  when  theatres  begin  to  be  estab- 
lished ;  the  construction  of  a  building  and  the  expenses 
of  a  performance  are  far  greater  risks  to  run  than  the  com- 
position of  a  drama.  To  the  founder  of  the  theatre  alone 
is  dramatic  art  indebted,  at  its  origin,  for  that  popular 
concourse  which  establishes  its  existence,  and  which  t  he 
talent  of  the  poet  could  never  have  drawn  together  with- 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  bl 

out  his  assistance.  When  Hardy  founded  his  theatre  at 
Paris,  each  troop  of  actors  had  its  poet,  ivdio  was  paid  a 
regular  salary  for  the  composition  of  p  ays,  just  in  the 
same  way  as  the  chaplain  of  the  Earl  of  Northumberland. 
In  the  time  of  Shakspeare,  the  English  stage  had  made 
much  greater  progress,  and  already  enjoyed  the  facility  of 
selection  and  the  advantages  of  competition.  The  poet  no 
longer  disposed  of  his  labor  beforehand,  but  he  sold  it  when 
completed ;  and  the  publication  of  a  piece,  for  permission 
to  perform  which  an  author  had  been  paid,  was  regarded, 
if  not  as  a  robbery,  at  least  as  a  want  of  delicacy  which 
he  found  it  difficult  to  defend  or  excuse.  While  dramatic 
property  was  in  this  state,  the  share  which  the  self-love  of 
an  author  might  claim  in  it  was  held  in  very  low  account 
the  success  of  a  work  which  he  had  sold  did  not  belong  tt  ■ 
him,  and  its  literary  merit  became,  in  the  hands  of  thn 
actors,  a  property  which  they  turned  to  account  by  a\\ 
the  improvements  which  their  experience  could  suggest. 
Transported  suddenly  into  the  midst  of  that  moving  pic- 
ture of  human  vicissitudes  which  even  the  paltriest  dra- 
matic productions  then  heaped  upon  the  stage,  the  imagin- 
ation of  Shakspeare  doubtless  beheld  new  fields  opening 
to  its  view.  What  interest,  what  truthfulness  might  he 
not  infuse  into  t,he  store  of  facts  presented  to  him  with 
such  coarse  baldness  !  What  pathetic  effects  might  he  not 
educe  from  all  this  theatrical  parade !  The  matter  was 
before  him,  waiting  for  spirit  and  life.  Why  had  not 
Shakspeare  attempted  to  communicate  them  to  it  ?  How- 
ever confused  and  incomplete  his  first  views  may  have 
been,  they  were  rays  of  light  arising  to  disperse  the  dark- 
ness and  disorder  of  chaos.  Now  a  superior  man  possesses 
the  power  of  making  the  light  which  illumines  his  own 
eyes  evident  to  the  eyes  of  others.      Shakspeare's  com- 


62  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

rades  doubtless  soon  perceived  what  new  successes  he 
might  obtain  for  them  by  remodeling  the  uncouth  works 
which  composed  their  dramatic  stock  ;  and  a  few  brilliant 
touches  imparted  to  a  ground-work  which  he  had  not 
painted — a  few  pathetic  or  terrible  scenes  intercalated  in 
an  action  which  he  had  not  directed — and  the  art  of  turn- 
ing to  account  a  plan  which  he  had  not  conceived,  were, 
in  all  probability,  his  earliest  labors,  and  his  first  presages 
of  glory.  In  1592,  a  time  at  which  we  can  scarcely  be 
certain  that  a  single  original  and  complete  work  had  issued 
from  his  pen,  a  jealous  and  discontented  author,  whose 
compositions  he  had  probably  improved  too  greatly,  speaks 
of  him,  in  the  fantastic  style  of  the  time,  as  an  "upstart 
crow,  beautified  with  our  feathers  ;  an  absolute  Johannes 
Factotum,  who  is,  in  his  own  conceit,  the  only  Shake- 
scene  in  the  country."* 

It  was,  we  are  inclined  to  believe,  while  engaged  in 
these  labors,  more  conformable  to  the  necessities  of  his 
position  than  to  the  freedom  of  his  genius,  that  Shaks- 
peare  sought  to  recreate  his  mind  by  the  composition  of 
his  "Venus  and  Adonis."  Perhaps  even  the  idea  of  this 
work  was  not  then  entirely  new  to  him ;  for  several  son- 
nets, relating  to  the  same  subject,  occur  in  a  volume  of 
poems  published  in  1596,  under  Skakspeare's  name,  and 
the  title  of  which,  "  The  Passionate  Pilgrim,"  is  expressive 
of  the  condition  of  a  man  wandering,  in  affliction,  far  from 
his  native  land.  The  amusement  of  a  few  melancholy 
hours,  from  which  the  age  and  character  of  the  poet  had 
not  availed  to  preserve  him  at  his  entrance  upon  a  pain- 
ful or  uncertain  destiny — these  little  works  are  doitbtless 
the  first  productions  which  Shakspeare's  poetic  genius  al- 
lowed him  to  avow ;  and  several  of  them,  as  well  as  the 
*  Greene's  "  Groatsworth  of  Wit,"  published  in  1592. 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  63 

poem  of  "  Venus  and  Adonis,"  need  to  be  excused,  it  must 
be  confessed,  by  the  effervescence  of  a  youth  too  much 
addicted  to  dreams  of  pleasure  not  to  attempt  to  repro- 
duce them  in  all  their  forms.  In  "Venus  and  Adonis," 
the  poet,  absolutely  carried  away  by  the  voluptuous  power 
of  his  subject,  seems  entirely  to  have  lost  sight  of  its  myth* 
ological  wealth.  Venus,  stripped  of  the  prestige  of  divini- 
ty, is  nothing  but  a  beautiful  courtesan,  endeavoring  un- 
successfully, by  all  the  prayers,  tears,  and  artifices  of  love, 
to  stimulate  the  languid  desires  of  a  cold  and  disdainful 
youth.  Hence  arises  a  monotony  which  is  not  redeemed 
by  the  simple  gracefulness  and  poetic  merit  of  many  pas- 
sages, and  which  is  augmented  by  the  division  of  the 
poem  into  stanzas  of  six  lines,  the  last  two  of  which  al- 
most invariably  present  ajeu  cV esprit.  But  a  metre  sin- 
gularly free  from  irregularities,  a  cadence  full  of  harmony, 
and  a  versification  which  had  never  before  been  equaled 
in  England,  announced  the  "  honey-tongued  poet,"  and 
the  poem  of  "Lucrece"  appeared  soon  afterward  to  com- 
plete those  epic  productions  which  for  some  time  sufficed 
to  maintain  his  glory. 

After  having,  in  "  Venus  and  Adonis,"  employed  tho 
most  lascivious  colors  to  depict  the  pangs  of  unsatisfied 
desire,  Shakspeare  has  described,  in  "  The  Rape  of  Lu- 
crece," with  the  chastest  pen,  and  by  way  of  reparation, 
as  it  were,  the  progress  and  triumph  of  criminal  lust.  The 
refinement  of  the  ideas,  the  affectation  of  the  styli?,  and 
the  merits  of  the  versification,  are  the  same  in  both  works : 
the  poetry  in  the  second  is  less  brilliant,  but  more  em- 
phatic, and  abounds  less  in  graceful  images  than  in  lofty 
thoughts  ;  but  we  can  already  discern  indications  of  a  pro- 
found acquaintance  with  the  feelings  of  man,  and  great 
talent  in  developing  them  in  a  dramatic  form,  by  means 


64  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

of  the  slightest  circumstances  of  life.  Thus  Lucreoe, 
weighed  down  by  a  sense  of  her  shame,  after  a  night  oi 
despair,  summons  a  young  slave  at  dawn  of  dty,  to  dis- 
patch him  to  the  camp  with  a  letter  to  call  hei  husband 
home  ;  the  slave,  being  of  a  timid  and  simple  character, 
blushes  on  appearing  in  the  presence  of  his  mistress ;  but 
Lucrece,  filled  with  the  consciousness  of  her  dishonor, 
imagines  that  he  blushes  at  her  shame  ;  and,  under  the  in- 
fluence of  the  idea  that  her  secret  is  discovered,  she  stands 
trembling  and  confused  before  her  slave. 

One  detail  in  this  poem  seems  to  indicate  the  epoch  at 
which  it  was  written.  Lucrece,  to  while  away  her  grief, 
stops  to  contemplate  a  picture  of  the  siege  of  Troy  ;  and, 
in  describing  it,  the  poet  complacently  refers  to  the  effects 
of  perspective : 

"  The  scalps  of  many,  almost  hid  behind, 
To  jump  up  higher  seem'd  to  mock  the  mind." 

This  is  the  observation  of  a  man  very  recently  struck  with 
the  wonders  of  art,  and  a  symptom  of  that  poetic  surprise 
which  the  sight  of  unknown  objects  awakens  in  an  im- 
agination capable  of  being  moved  thereby.  Perhaps  we 
may  conclude,  from  this  circumstance,  that  the  poem  of 
"  Lucrece"  was  composed  during  the  early  part  of  Shaks- 
peare's  residence  in  London. 

But  whatever  may  be  the  date  of  these  two  poems,  their 
place  among  Shakspeare's  works  is  at  a  period  far  more 
remote  from  us  than  any  of  those  which  filled  up  his  dra- 
matic career.  In  this  career  he  marched  forward,  and 
drew  his  age  after  him  ;  and  his  weakest  essays  in  dra- 
matic poetry  are  indicative  of  the  prodigious  power  which 
he  displayed  in  his  last  works.  Shakspeare's  true  history 
belongs  to  the  stage  alone  ;  after  having  seen  it  there,  we 
can  not  seek  for  it  elsewhere  ;  and  Shakapeare  himself  nc 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES  65 

ionger  quitted  it.  His  sonnets — fugitive  pieces  which  the 
poetic  and  sprightly  grace  of  some  lines  would  not  have 
rescued  from  oblivion  but  for  the  curiosity  which  at- 
taches to  the  slightest  traces  of  a  celebrated  man — may 
here  and  there  cast  a  little  light  on  the  obscure  or  doubt- 
ful portions  of  his  life  ;  but,  in  a  literary  point  of  view, 
we  have  in  future  to  consider  him  only  as  a  dramatic 
poet. 

I  have  already  stated  what  was  the  first  employment 
of  his  talents  in  this  kind  of  composition.  Great  uncer- 
tainty has  resulted  therefrom  with  regard  to  the  authen- 
ticity of  some  of  his  works.  Shakspeare  had  a  hand  in  a 
vast  number  of  dramas ;  and  probably,  even  in  his  own 
time,  it  would  not  have  been  always  easy  to  assign  his 
precise  share  in  them  all.  For  two  centuries,  criticism 
has  been  engaged  in  determining  the  boundaries  of  his 
true  possessions  ;  but  facts  are  wanting  for  this  investiga- 
tion, and  literary  judgments  have  usually  been  influenced 
by  a  desire  to  strengthen  some  favorite  theory  on  the  sub- 
ject. It  is,  therefore,  almost  impossible,  at  the  present 
day,  to  pronounce  with  certainty  upon  the  authenticity 
of  Shakspeare's  doubtful  plays.  Nevertheless,  after  hav- 
ing read  them,  I  can  not  coincide  with  M.  Schlegel — for 
whose  acumen  I  have  the  highest  respect — in  attributing 
them  to  him.  The  baldness  which  characterizes  these 
pieces,  the  heap  of  unexplained  incidents  and  incoherent 
sentiments  which  they  contain,  and  their  precipitate  prog- 
ress through  undeveloped  scenes  toward  events  destitute 
of  interest,  are  unmistakable  signs  by  which,  in  times  still 
rude,  we  may  recognize  fecundity  devoid  of  genius;  signs 
so  contrary  to  the  nature  of  Shakspeare's  talent,  that  I  can 
nc  t  even  discover  in  them  the  defects  which  may  have 
disfigured  his  earliest  essays.     Among  the  multitude  of 


66  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

plays  which,  by  common  consent,  the  latest  editors  have 
rejected  as  being  at  least  doubtful,  "Locrine,"  "Thomas, 
Lord  Cromwell,"  "  The  London  Prodigal,"  "  The  Puritan," 
and  "  The  Yorkshire  Tragedy,"  scarcely  present  the  slight- 
est indications  of  having  been  retouched  by  any  hand  su- 
perior to  that  of  their  original  author.  "  Sir  John  Old- 
castle,"  which  is  more  interesting,  and  composed  with 
greater  good  sense  than  any  of  the  foregoing,  is  animated 
in  some  scenes  by  a  comic  humor  akin  to  that  of  Shaks- 
peare.  But  if  it  be  true  that  genius,  even  in  its  lowest 
abasement,  gives  forth  some  luminous  rays  to  betray  its 
presence  ;  if  Shakspeare,  in  particular,  bore  that  distinct- 
ive mark  which,  in  one  of  his  sonnets,  makes  him  say,  in 
reference  to  his  writings, 

"That  every  word  doth  almost  tell  my  name,"* 

assuredly  he  had  not  to  reproach  himself  with  the  produc- 
tion of  that  execrable  accumulation  of  horrors  which,  un- 
der the  name  of  "  Titus  Andronicus,"  has  been  foisted  upon 
the  English  people  as  a  dramatic  work,  and  in  which, 
Heaven  be  thanked  !  there  is  not  a  single  spark  of  truth, 
or  scintillation  of  genius,  which  can  give  evidence  against 
him. 

Of  the  doubtful  plays,  "  Pericles"  is,  in  my  opinion,  the 
only  one  to  which  the  name  of  Shakspeare  can  be  attached 
with  any  degree  of  certainty ;  or  at  least,  it  is  the  only 
one  in  which  we  find  evident  traces  of  his  co-operation, 
especially  in  the  scene  in  which  Pericles  meets  and  recog- 
nizes his  daughter  Marina,  whom  he  believed  dead.  If, 
during  Shakspcare's  lifetime,  any  other  man  could  have 
combined  power  and  truth  in  so  high  a  degree  in  the  de- 
lineation of  the  natural  feelings,  England  would  then  have 
*  Sonnet  76,  Knight's  Library  edition,  vol.  xii.,  p.  152. 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  V 

possessed  another  poet.  Nevertheless,  though  it  contains 
one  fine  scene  and  many  scattered  beauties,  the  play  is  a 
had  one  ;  it  is  destitute  of  reality  and  art,  and  is  entirely 
alien  to  Shakspeare's  system  :  it  is  interesting  only  as 
marking  the  point  from  which  he  started  ;  and  it  seems 
to  belong  to  his  works  as  a  last  monument  of  that  which 
he  overthrew — as  a  remnant  of  that  anti-dramatic  scaffold- 
ing for  which  he  was  about  to  substitute  the  presem ■.•»,  and 
movement  of  vitality. 

The  spectacles  of  barbarous  nations  always  appeal  to 
their  sense  of  vision  before  they  attempt  to  influence  their 
imagination  by  the  aid  of  poetry.  The  taste  of  the  En- 
glish for  those  pageants,  which,  during  the  Middle  Ages, 
constituted  the  chief  attraction  of  public  solemnities 
throughout  Europe,  exercised  great  influence  over  the 
stage  in  England.  During  the  first  half  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  the  monk  Lydgate,  when  singing  the  misfortunes 
of  Troy  with  that  liberty  of  erudition  which  English  lit- 
erature tolerated  to  a  greater  extent  than  that  of  any  other 
country,  describes  a  dramatic  performance  which,  he  says, 
took  place  within  the  walls  of  Troy.  He  describes  the 
poet,  "with  deadly  face  all  devoid  of  blood, v  rehearsing 
from  a  pulpit  "  all  the  noble  deeds  that  were  historical  of 
kings,  princes,  and  worthy  emperors."    At  the  same  time, 

"  Amydde  the  theatre,  shrowded  in  a  tent 
There  came  out  men,  gastful  of  their  cheres, 
Disfygured  their  faces  with  vyseres, 
Playing  by  signes  in  the  people's  sight 
That  the  poete  songe  hath  on  height." 

Lydgate,  a  monk  and  poet,  equally  ready  to  rhyme  a  le* 
gend  or  a  ballad,  to  compose  verses  for  a  masquerade  or  to 
sketch  the  plan  of  a  religious  pantomime,  had  probably 
Sgured  in  some  performance  of  this  kind  ;  and  his  descrip- 


P8  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

tion  certainly  gives  us  an  accurate  idea  of  the  dramatic 
exhibitions  of  his  time.  "When  dialogue-poetry  had  taken 
possession  of  the  stage,  pantomime  remained  as  an  orna- 
ment and  addition  to  the  performance.  In  most  of  the 
plays  anterior  to  Shakspeare,  personages  of  an  almost  in- 
variably emblematical  character  appear  between  the  acts, 
to  indicate  the  subjects  of  the  scenes  about  to  follow.  An 
historical  or  allegorical  personage  is  introduced  to  explain 
these  emblems,  and  to  moralize  the  piece,  that  is,  to  point 
out  the  moral  truths  contained  in  it.  In  "  Pericles,"  Gow- 
er,  a  poet  of  the  fourteenth  century — celebrated  for  his 
"  Confessio  Amantis,"  in  which  he  has  related,  in  English 
verse,  the  story  of  Pericles  as  told  by  more  ancient  writers 
— comes  upon  the  stage  to  state  to  the  public,  not  that 
which  is  about  to  happen,  but  such  anterior  facts  as  re- 
quire to  be  explained,  that  the  drama  may  be  properly  un- 
derstood. Sometimes  his  narrative  is  interrupted  and  sup- 
plemented by  the  dumb  representation  of  the  facts  them- 
selves. Grower  then  explains  all  that  the  mute  action  has 
not  elucidated.  He  appears  not  only  at  the  commence- 
ment of  the  play  and  between  the  acts,  but  even  during 
the  course  of  an  act,  whenever  it  is  found  convenient  to 
abridge  by  narrative  some  less  interesting  part  of  the  ac- 
tion, in  order  to  apprise  the  spectator  of  a  change  of  place 
or  a  lapse  of  time,  and  thus  to  transport  his  imagination 
wherever  a  new  scene  requires  its  presence.  This  was 
decidedly  a  step  in  advance  ;  a  useless  accessory  had  be- 
come a  means  of  development  and  of  clearness.  But 
Shakspeare  speedily  rejected  this  factitious  and  awkward 
contrivance  as  unworthy  of  his  ;>ttt  and  ere  long  he  in- 
spired the  action  with  power  to  explain  itself,  to  make  it- 
self understood  on  appearance,  and  thus  tovgive  dramatio 
performances  that  aspect  of  life  and  reality  which  could 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  69 

never  be  attained  by  a  machinery  which  thus  coarsely 
displayed  its  wheel- works  to  public  view.  Among  Shaks- 
peare's  subsequent  dramas,  "  Henry  V."  and  the  "  "Win 
ter's  Tale"  are  the  only  ones  in  which  the  chorus  inter- 
venes to  relieve  the  poet  in  the  difficult  task  of  conveying 
his  audience  through  time  and  space.  The  chorus  of 
"  Romeo  and  Juliet,"  which  was  retained  perhaps  as  a 
relic  of  ancient  usage,  is  only  a  poetic  ornament,  quite  un- 
connected with  the  action  of  the  play.  After  the  produc- 
tion of  "  Pericles,"  dumb  pageants  completely  disappear- 
ed ;  and  if  the  three  parts  of  "  Henry  VI."  do  not  attest, 
by  their  power  of  composition,  a  close  relationship  to  Shaks- 
peare's  system,  nothing,  at  least  in  their  material  forms, 
is  out  of  harmony  with  it. 

Of  these  three  pieces,  the  first  has  been  absolutely  de- 
nied to  Shakspeare ;  and  it  is,  in  my  opinion,  equally  dif- 
ficult to  believe  that  it  is  entirely  his  composition,  and  that 
the  admirable  scene  between  Talbot  and  his  son  does  not 
bear  the  impress  of  his  hand.  Two  old  dramas,  printed 
in  1600,  contain  the  plan,  and  even  numerous  details  of  the 
second  and  third  parts  of  "  Henry  VI."  These  two  original 
works  were  long  attributed  to  our  poet,  as  a  first  essay 
Arhich  he  afterward  perfected.  But  this  opinion  will  not 
bear  an  attentive  examination ;  and  all  the  probabilities, 
both  literary  and  historical,  unite  in  granting  to  Shaks- 
peare, in  the  last  two  parts  of  "  Henry  VI.,"  no  other  share 
than  that  of  a  more  important  and  extensive  remodeling 
than  he  was  able  to  bestow  upon  other  works  submitted  to 
his  correction.  Brilliant  developments,  imagery  conceived 
with  taste  and  followodfcup  with  skill,  and  a  lofty,  ani- 
mated, and  picturesquely le,  are  the  characteristics  which 
distinguish  the  great  poet's  work  from  the  primitive  pro- 
duction whicrrae  had  merely  beautified  with  his  magnifr 


TO  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

cent  coloring.  As  regards  their  plan  and  arrangement, 
the  original  pieces  have  undergone  no  change ;  and  even 
after  the  composition  of  the  three  parts  of  "  Henry  VI.." 
Shakspeare  might  still  speak  of  the  "Venus  and  Adonis" 
as  the  "first  heir  of  his  invention." 

But  when  will  this  invention  finally  display  itself  in  all 
its  freedom  ?  When  will  Shakspeare  walk  alone  on  that 
stage  on  which  he  is  to  achieve  such  mighty  progress  ? 
Some  of  his  biographers  place  the  "  Comedy  of  Errors," 
and  "  Love's  Labor  Lost" — the  first  two  works  the  honors 
and  criticisms  of  which  he  has  to  share  with  no  one — be- 
fore "  Henry  VI."  in  order  of  time.  In  this  unimportant 
discussion,  one  fact  alone  is  certain,  and  becomes  a  new 
subject  of  surprise.  The  first  dramatic  work  which  the 
imagination  of  Shakspeare  truly  produced  was  a  comedy ; 
and  this  comedy  will  be  followed  by  others :  he  has  at  last 
taken  wing,  but  not  as  yet  toward  the  realms  of  tragedy. 
Corneille  also  began  with  comedy,  but  he  was  then  ig- 
norant of  his  own  powers,  and  almost  ignorant  of  the 
drama.  The  familiar  scenes  of  life  had  alone  presented 
themselves  to  his  thoughts ;  and  the  scenes  of  his  come- 
dies are  laid  in  his  native  town,  in  the  Gralerie  du  Palais 
and  in  the  Place  Royale.  His  subjects  are  timidly  bor- 
rowed from  surrounding  circumstances ;  he  has  not  yet 
risen  above  himself,  or  transcended  his  limited  sphere  ;  his 
vision  has  not  yet  penetrated  into  those  ideal  regions  in 
which  his  imagination  will  one  day  roam  at  will.  But 
Shakspeare  is  already  a  poet ;  imitation  no  longer  tram- 
mels his  progress ;  and  his  conceptions  are  no  longer 
formed  exclusively  within  the  world  of  his  habits.  How 
was  it  that  the  frivolous  spirit  of  comedy  was  his  first 
guide  in  that  poetic  world  from  which  he  drew  his  inspi- 
ration ?     Why  did  not  the  emotions  of  tragedy  first  awaken 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  7] 

the  powers  of  so  eminently  tragic  a  poet  ?  "Was  it  this 
circumstance  which  led  Johnson  to  give  this  singular  opin- 
ion :  "  Shakspeare's  tragedy  seems  to  be  skill ;  his  comedy 
to  he  instinct  ?" 

Assuredly,  nothing  can  be  more  whimsical  than  to  re- 
fuse to  Shakspeare  the  instinct  of  tragedy  ;  and  if  Jolmson 
had  had  any  feeling  of  it  himself,  such  an  idea  would 
never  have  entered  his  mind.  The  fact  which  I  have  just 
stated,  however,  is  not  open  to  doubt ;  it  is  well  deserving 
of  explanation,  and  has  its  causes  in  the  very  nature  of 
comedy,  as  it  was  understood  and  treated  by  Shakspeare. 

Shakspeare's  comedy  is  not,  in  fact,  the  comedy  of  Mo- 
liere  ;  nor  is  it  that  of  Aristophanes,  or  of  the  Latin  poets. 
Among  the  Greeks,  and  in  France,  in  modern  times,  com- 
edy was  the  offspring  of  a  free  but  attentive  observation 
of  the  real  world,  and  its  object  was  to  bring  its  features 
on  the  stage.  The  distinction  between  the  tragic  and  the 
comic  styles  is  met  with  almost  in  the  cradle  of  dramatic 
art,  and  their  separation  has  always  become  more  dis- 
tinctly marked  during  the  course  of  their  progress.  The 
principle  of  this  distinction  is  contained  in  the  very  nature 
of  things.  The  destiny  and  nature  of  man,  his  passions 
and  affairs,  characters  and  events — all  things  within  and 
around  us — have  their  serious  and  their  amusing  sides, 
and  may  be  considered  and  described  under  either  of  these 
points  of  view.  This  two-fold  aspect  of  man  and  the  world 
has  opened  to  dramatic  poetry  two  careers  naturally  dis- 
tinct ;  but  in  dividing  its  powers  to  traverse  them  both, 
art  has  neither  separated  itself  from  realities,  nor  ceased 
to  observe  and  reproduce  them.  "Whether  Aristophanes' 
attacks,  with  the  most  fantastic  liberty  of  imagination,  the 
vices  or  follies  of  the  Athenians  ;  or  whether  Moliere  de- 
picts the  absurdities  of  credulity  and  avarice,  of  jealousy 


72  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

and  pedantry,  and  ridicules  the  frivolity  of  courts,  the  van- 
ity of  citizens,  and  even  the  affectation  of  virtues,  it  mat 
ters  little  that  there  is  a  difference  between  the  subjects 
in  the  delineation  of  which  the  two  poets  have  employed 
their  powers  ;  it  matters  little  that  one  brought  public  life 
and  the  whole  nation  on  the  stage,  while  the  other  merely 
described  incidents  of  private  life,  the  interior  arrange- 
ments of  families,  and  the  nonsensicality  of  individual 
characters ;  this  difference  in  the  materials  of  comedy 
arises  from  the  difference  of  time,  place,  and  state  of  civ- 
ilization. But  in  both  Aristophanes  and  Moliere  realities 
always  constitute  the  substance  of  the  picture.  The  man- 
ners and  ideas  of  their  times,  the  vices  and  follies  of  their 
fellow-citizens — in  a  word,  the  nature  and  life  of  man — 
are  always  the  stimulus  and  nutriment  of  their  poetic 
vein.  Comedy  thus  takes  its  origin  in  the  world  which 
surrounds  the  poet,  and  is  connected,  much  more  closely 
than  tragedy,  with  external  and  real  facts. 

The  Greeks,  whose  mind  and  civilization  followed  so 
regular  a  course  in  their  development,  did  not  combine  the 
two  kinds  of  composition,  and  the  distinction  which  sep- 
arates them  in  nature  was  maintained  without  effort  in 
art.  Simplicity  prevailed  among  this  people  ;  society  was 
not  abandoned  by  them  to  a  state  of  conflict  and  incoher- 
ence ;  and  their  destiny  did  not  pass  away  in  protracted  ob- 
scurity, in  the  midst  of  contrasts,  and  a  prey  to  dark  and 
deep  uneasiness.  They  grew  and  shone  in  their  land  just 
as  the  sun  rose  and  pursued  its  course  through  the  skies 
which  overshadowed  them.  National  perils,  intestine  dis- 
cord, and  civil  wars  agitated  the  life  of  a  man  in  those 
days,  without  disturbing  his  imagination,  and  without  op- 
posing or  deranging  the  natural  and  easy  course  of  his 
thoughts.     The  reflex  influence  of  this  general  harmony 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  73 

was  diffused  over  literature  and  the  arts.  Styles  of  com- 
position spontaneously  became  distinguished  from  each 
other,  according  to  the  principles  upon  which  they  de- 
pended and  the  impressions  which  they  aspired  to  pro- 
duce. The  sculptor  chiseled,  isolated  statues  or  innumer- 
ous  groups,  and  did  not  aim  at  composing  violent  scenes 
or  vast  pictures  out  of  blocks  of  marble.  ^Eschylus,  Soph- 
ocles, and  Euripides  undertook  to  excite  the  people  by  the 
narration  of  the  mighty  destinies  of  heroes  and  of  kings. 
Cratinus  and  Aristophanes  aimed  at  diverting  them  by  the 
representation  of  the  absurdities  of  their  contemporaries 
or  of  their  own  follies.  These  natural  classifications  cor- 
responded with  the  entire  system  of  social  order,  with  the 
state  of  the  minds  of  the  age,  and  with  the  instincts  of 
public  taste — which  would  have  been  shocked  at  their  vi- 
olation, which  desired  to  yield  itself  without  uncertainty 
or  participation  to  a  single  impression  or  a  single  pleasure, 
and  which  would  have  rejected  all  those  unnatural  mixt- 
ures and  uncongenial  combinations  to  which  their  atten- 
tion had  never  been  called  or  their  judgment  accustomed. 
Thus  every  art  and  every  style  received  its  free  and  iso- 
lated development  within  the  limits  of  its  proper  mission. 
Thus  tragedy  and  comedy  shared  man  and  the  world  be- 
tween them,  each  taking  a  different  domain  in  the  region 
of  realities,  and  coming  by  turns  to  offer  to  the  serious  or 
mirthful  consideration  of  a  people  who  invariably  insisted 
upon  simplicity  and  harmony,  the  poetic  effects  which 
their  skill  could  derive  from  the  materials  placed  in  their 
hands. 

In  our  modern  world,  all  things  have  borne  another 
character.  Order,  regularity,  natural  and  easy  develop- 
ment, seem  to  have  been  banished  from  it.  Immense  in 
terests,  admirable  ideas,  sublime  sentiments,  have  been 

D 


74  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

thrown,  as  it  were,  pell-mell  with  brutal  passions,  coarse 
necessities,  and  vulgar  habits.  Obscurity,  agitation,  and 
disturbance  have  reigned  in  minds  as  well  as  in  states. 
Nations  have  been  formed,  not  of  freemen  and  slaves,  but 
of  a  confused  mixture  of  diverse,  complicated  classes,  ever 
engaged  in  conflict  and  labor  ;  a  violent  chaos,  which  civ- 
ilization, after  long-continued  efforts,  has  not  yet  succeed- 
ed in  reducing  to  complete  harmony.  Social  conditions, 
separated  by  power,  but  united  in  a  common  barbarism 
of  manners  ;  the  germ  of  loftiest  moral  truths  fermenting 
in  the  midst  of  absurd  ignorance ;  great  virtues  applied 
in  opposition  to  all  reason  ;  shameful  vices  maintained  and 
defended  with  hauteur  ;  an  indocile  honor,  ignorant  of  the 
simplest  delicacies  of  honesty  ;  boundless  servility,  accom- 
panied by  measureless  pride ;  in  fine,  the  incoherent  as- 
semblage of  all  that  human  nature  and  destiny  contain  of 
that  which  is  great  and  little,  noble  and  trivial,  serious 
and  puerile,  strong  and  wretched — this  is  what  man  and 
society  have  been  in  our  Europe ;  this  is  the  spectacle 
which  has  appeared  on  the  theatre  of  the  world. 

In  such  a  state  of  mind  and  things,  how  was  it  possible 
for  a  clear  distinction  and  simple  classification  of  styles 
and  arts  to  be  effected  ?  How  could  tragedy  and  comedy 
have  presented  and  formed  themselves  isolatedly  in  litera- 
ture, when,  in  reality,  they  were  incessantly  in  contact, 
entwined  in  the  same  facts,  and  intermingled  in  the  same 
actions,  so  thoroughly,  that  it  was  sometimes  difficult  to 
discern  the  moment  of  passage  from  one  to  the  other. 
Neither  the  rational  principle,  nor  the  delicate  feeling 
which  separate  them,  could  attain  any  development  in 
minds  which  were  incapacitated  from  apprehending  them 
by  the  disorder  and  rapidity  of  different  or  opposite  im- 
pressions.    "Was  it  proposed  to  bring  upon  the  stage  the 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  75 

habitual  occurrences  of  ordinary  life  ?  Taste  was  as  eas- 
ily satisfied  as  manners.  Those  religious  performances 
which  were  the  origin  of  the  European  theatre,  had  not 
escaped  this  admixture.  Christianity  is  a  popular  relig- 
ion ;  into  the  abyss  of  terrestrial  miseries,  its  divine  found- 
er came  in  search  of  men,  to  draw  them  to  himself;  its 
early  history  is  a  history  of  poor,  sick,  and  feeble  men;  it 
existed  at  first  for  a  long  while  in  obscurity,  and  afterward 
in  the  midst  of  persecutions,  despised  and  proscribed  by 
turns,  and  exposed  to  all  the  vicissitudes  and  efforts  of  a 
humble  and  violent  destiny.  Uncultivated  imaginations 
easily  seized  upon  the  triviality  which  might  be  intermin- 
gled with  the  incidents  of  this  history  ;  the  Grospel,  the  acts 
of  martyrs,  and  the  lives  of  saints,  would  have  struck  them 
much  less  powerfully  if  they  had  seen  only  their  tragic 
aspect  or  their  rational  truths.  The  first  Mysteries  brought 
simultaneously  upon  the  stage  the  emotions  of  religious 
terror  and  tenderness,  and  the  buffooneries  of  vulgar  com- 
icality ;  and  thus,  in  the  very  cradle  of  dramatic  poetry, 
tragedy  and  comedy  contracted  that  alliance  which  was 
inevitably  forced  upon  them  by  the  general  condition  of 
nations  and  of  minds. 

In  France,  however,  this  alliance  was  speedily  broken 
off.  From  causes  which  are  connected  with  the  entire 
history  of  our  civilization,  the  French  people  have  always 
taken  extreme  pleasure  in  drollery.  Of  this,  our  literature 
has  from  time  to  time  given  evidence.  This  craving  for 
gayety,  and  for  gayety  without  alloy,  early  supplied  the  in- 
ferior classes  of  our  countrymen  with  their  comic  farces, 
into  which  nothing  was  admitted  that  had  not  a  tendency 
to  excite  laughter.  In  the  infancy  of  the  art,  comedy  in 
France  may  very  possibly  have  invaded  the  domain  of 
tragedy,  but  tragedy  had  no  right  to  the  field  which  com- 


76  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

edy  had  reserved  to  itself ;  and  in  the  piteous  Moralities 
and  pompous  Tragedies  which  princes  caused  to  he  repre- 
sented in  their  palaces,  and  rectors  in  their  colleges,  the 
trivially  comic  element  long  retained  a  place  which  was 
inexorably  refused  to  the  tragic  element  in  the  buffooner- 
ies with  which  the  people  were  amused.  We  may  there- 
fore affirm  that  in  France  comedy,  in  an  ijnperfect  but 
distinct  form,  was  created  before  tragedy.  At  a  later  pe- 
riod, the  rigorous  separation  of  classes,  the  absence  of  pop- 
ular institutions,  the  regular  action  of  the  supreme  power, 
the  establishment  of  a  more  exact  and  uniform  system  of 
public  order  than  existed  in  any  other  country,  the  habits 
and  influence  of  the  court,  and  a  variety  of  other  causes, 
disposed  the  popular  mind  to  maintain  that  strict  distinc- 
tion between  the  two  styles  which  was  ordained  by  the 
classical  authorities,  who  held  undisputed  sway  over  our 
drama.  Then  arose  among  us  true  and  great  comedy,  as 
conceived  by  Moliere ;  and  as  it  was  in  accordance  with 
our  manners,  as  well  as  with  the  rules  of  the  art,  to  strike 
out  a  new  path — as,  while  adapting  itself  to  the  precepts 
of  antiquity,  it  did  not  fail  to  derive  its  subjects  and  col- 
oring from  the  facts  and  personages  of  the  surrounding 
world,  our  comedy  suddenly  rose  to  a  pitch  of  perfection 
which,  in  my  opinion,  has  never  been  attained  by  any 
other  country  in  any  other  age.  To  place  himself  in  the 
interior  of  families,  and  thereby  to  gain  the  immense  ad- 
vantage of  a  variety  of  ideas  and  conditions,  which  ex- 
tends the  domain  of  art  without  injuring  the  simplicity  of 
the  effects  which  it  produces  ;  to  find  in  man  passions  suf- 
ficiently strong,  and  caprices  sufficiently  powerful  to  sway 
his  whole  destiny,  and  yet  to  limit  their  influence  to  the 
suggestion  of  those  errors  which  may  make  man  ridicu- 
lous, without  ever  touching  upon  those  which  would  rcn- 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  >T 

ier  him  miserable ;  to  describe  an  individual  as  laboring 
under  that  excess  of  preoccupation  which,  diverting  him 
from  all  other  thoughts,  abandons  him  entirely  to  the  guid- 
ance of  the  idea  which  possesses  him,  and  yet  to  throw  in 
his  way  only  those  interests  which  are  sufficiently  frivo- 
lous to  enable  him  to  compromise  them  without  danger ; 
to  depict,  in  "  Tartuffe,"  the  threatening  knavery  of  the 
hypocrite,  and  the  dangerous  imbecility  of  the  dupe,  in 
such  a  manner  as  merely  to  divert  the  spectator,  without 
incurring  any  of  the  odious  consequences  of  such  a  posi- 
tion ;  to  give  a  comic  character,  in  the  "  Misanthrope,"  to 
those  feelings  which  do  most  honor  to  the  human  race,  by 
condemning  them  to  confinement  within  the  dimensions 
of  the  existence  of  a  courtier ;  and  thus  to  reach  the  amus- 
ing by  means  of  the  serious  ;  to  extract  food  for  mirth  from 
the  inmost  recesses  of  human  nature,  and  incessantly  to 
maintain  the  character  of  comedy  while  bordering  upon 
the  confines  of  tragedy — this  is  what  Moliere  has  done, 
this  is  the  difficult  and  original  style  which  he  bestowed 
upon  France ;  and  France  alone,  in  my  opinion,  could 
have  given  dramatic  art  this  tendency,  and  Moliere. 

Nothing  of  this  kind  took  place  among  the  English. 
The  asylum  of  German  manners,  as  well  as  of  G-erman 
liberties,  England  pursued,  without  obstacle,  the  irregular, 
but  natural  course  of  the  civilization  which  such  elements 
could  not  fail  to  engender.  It  retained  their  disorder  as 
well  as  their  energy,  and,  until  the  middle  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  its  literature,  as  well  as  its  institutions, 
was  the  sincere  expression  of  these  qualities.  "When  the 
English  drama  attempted  to  reproduce  the  poetic  image 
of  the  world,  tragedy  and  comedy  were  not  separated. 
The  predominance  of  the  popular  taste  sometimes  carried 
tragic  representations  to  a  pitch  of  atrocity  which  was  un 


78  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

known  in  France,  even  in  the  rudest  essays  of  dramatic 
art ;  and  the  influence  of  the  clergy,  by  purging  the  comic 
stage  of  that  excessive  immorality  which  it  exhibited  else- 
where, also  deprived  it  of  that  malicious  and  sustained 
gayety  which  constitutes  the  essence  of  true  comedy.  The 
habits  of  mind  which  were  entertained  among  the  people 
by  the  minstrels  and  their  ballads,  allowed  the  introduc- 
tion, even  into  those  compositions  which  were  most  exclu- 
sively devoted  to  mirthfulness,  of  some  touches  of  those 
emotions  which  comedy  in  France  can  never  admit  with 
out  losing  its  name,  and  becoming  melodrama.  Among 
truly  national  works,  the  only  thoroughly  comic  play 
which  the  English  stage  possessed  before  the  time  of 
Shakspeare,  "  Gammer  Grurton's  Needle,"  was  composed 
for  a  college,  and  modeled  in  accordance  with  the  classic 
rules.  The  vague  titles  given  to  dramatic  works,  such 
as  play,  interlude,  history,  or  even  ballad,  scarcely  ever 
indicate  any  distinction  of  style.  Thus,  between  that 
which  was  called  tragedy  and  that  which  was  sometimes 
named  comedy,  the  only  essential  difference  consisted  in 
the  denouement,  according  to  the  principles  laid  down  in 
the  fifteenth  century  by  the  monk  Lydgate,  who  "defines 
a  comedy  to  begin  with  complaint  and  to  end  with  glad- 
ness, whereas  tragedy  begins  in  prosperity  and  ends  in 
adversity." 
I  Thus,  at  the  advent  of  Shakspeare,  the  nature  and  des- 
tiny of  man,  which  constitute  the  materials  of  dramatic 
poetry,  were  not  divided  or  classified  into  different  branches 
of  art.  When  art  desired  to  introduce  them  on  the  stage, 
it  accepted  them  in  their  entirety,  with  all  the  mixtures 
and  contrasts  which  they  present  to  observation ;  nor  was 
the  public  taste  inclined  to  complain  of  this.  The  comio 
portion  of  human  realities  had  a  right  to  take  its  place 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  ?9 

wherever  its  presence  was  demanded  or  permitted  by 
truth ;  and  such  was  the  character  of  civilization,  that 
tragedy,  by  admitting  the  comic  element,  did  not  derogate 
from  truth  in  the  slightest  degree.  In  such  a  condition 
of  the  stage  and  of  the  public  mind,  what  could  be  the 
state  of  comedy,  properly  so  called  ?  How  could  it  be 
permitted  to  claim  to  bear  a  particular  name,  and  to  form 
a  distinct  style  ?  It  succeeded  in  this  attempt  by  boldly 
leaving  those  realities  in  which  its  natural  domain  was 
neither  respected  nor  acknowledged ;  it  did  not  limit  its 
efforts  to  the  delineation  of  settled  manners  or  of  consistent 
characters ;  it  did  not  propose  to  itself  to  represent  men 
and  things  under  a  ridiculous  but  truthful  aspect ;  but  it 
became  a  fantastic  and  romantic  work,  the  refuge  of  those 
amusing  improbabilities  which,  in  its  idleness  or  folly,  the 
imagination  delights  to  connect  together  by  a  slight  thread, 
in  order  to  form  from  them  combinations  capable  of  af- 
fording diversion  or  interest,  without  calling  for  the  judg- 
ment of  the  reason.  Graceful  pictures,  surprises,  the  cu- 
riosity which  attaches  to  the  progress  of  an  intrigue,  mis- 
takes, quid-pro-quos,  all  the  witticisms  of  parody  and 
travestie,  formed  the  substance  of  this  inconsequent  diver- 
sion. The  conformation  of  the  Spanish  plays,  a  taste  for 
which  was  beginning  to  prevail  in  England,  supplied  these 
gambols  of  the  imagination  with  abundant  frame- works 
and  alluring  models.  Next  to  their  chronicles  and  bal- 
lads, collections  of  French  or  Italian  tales,  together  with 
the  romances  of  chivalry,  formed  the  favorite  reading  of 
the  people.  Is  it  strange  that  so  productive  a  mine  and 
so  easy  a  style  should  first  have  attracted  the  attention 
of  Shakspeare  ?  Can  we  feel  astonished  that  his  young 
and  brilliant  imagination  hastened  to  wander  at  will 
among  such  subjects,  free  from  the  yoke  of  probabilities, 


80  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

and  excused  from  seeking  after  serious  ai  d  vigorous  com- 
binations ?  The  great  poet,  whose  mind  and  hand  pro- 
ceeded, it  is  said,  with  such  equal  rapidity  that  his  manu- 
script scarcely  contained  a  single  erasure,  doubtless  yield- 
ed with  delight  to  those  unrestrained  gambols  in  which 
he  could  display  without  labor  his  rich  and  varied  facul- 
ties. He  could  put  any  thing  he  pleased  into  his  come- 
dies, and  he  has,  in  fact,  put  every  thing  into  them,  with 
the  exception  of  one  thing  which  was  incompatible  with 
such  a  system,  namely,  the  ensemble  which,  making  every 
part  concur  toward  the  same  end,  reveals  at  every  step 
the  depth  of  the  plan  and  the  grandeur  of  the  work.  It 
would  be  difficult  to  find  in  Shakspeare's  tragedies  a  sin- 
gle conception,  position,  act,  or  passion,  or  degree  of  vice 
or  virtue,  which  may  not  also  be  met  with  in  some  one 
of  his  comedies ;  but  that  which  in  his  tragedies  is  care- 
fully thought  out,  fruitful  in  result,  and  intimately  con- 
nected with  the  series  of  causes  and  effects,  is  in  his  come- 
dies only  just  indicated,  and  offered  to  our  sight  for  a  mo- 
ment to  dazzle  us  with  a  passing  gleam,  and  soon  to  dis- 
appear in  a  new  combination.  In  "Measure  for  Meas 
ure,"  Angelo,  the  unworthy  governor  of  Vienna,  after  hav- 
ing condemned  Claudio  to  death  for  the  crime  of  having 
seduced  a  young  girl  whom  he  intended  to  marry,  him- 
self attempts  to  seduce  Isabella,  the  sister  oi  Ciaudio,  by 
promising  her  brother's  pardon  as  a  recompense  for  her 
own  dishonor ;  and  when,  by  Isabella's  address  in  sub- 
stituting another  girl  in  her  place,  he  thinks  he  has  re- 
ceived the  price  of  his  infamous  bargain,  he  gives  orders 
to  hasten  Claudio's  execution.  Is  not  this  tragedy  ? 
Such  a  fact  might  well  be  placed  in  the  life  of  Richard 
the  Third,  and  no  crime  of  Macbeth's  presents  this  ex- 
cess of  wickedness      But  in  "Macbeth"  and  "RiclarJ 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  81 

III.,"  crime  produces  the  tragic  effect  -which  belongs  to  it, 
because  it  bears  the  impress  of  probat  ility ,  and  because 
real  forms  and  colors  attest  its  presence :  we  can  discern 
the  place  which  it  occupies  in  the  heart  of  which  it  has 
taken  possession  :  we  know  how  it  gained  admission,  what 
it  has  conquered,  and  what  remains  for  it  to  subjugate : 
we  behold  it  incorporating  itself  by  degrees  into  the  un- 
happy being  whom  it  has  subdued :  we  see  it  living,  walk- 
ing, and  breathing  with  a  man  who  lives,  walks,  and 
breathes,  and  thus  communicates  to  it  his  character,  his 
own  individuality.  In  Angelo,  crime  is  only  a  vague  ab- 
straction, connected  en  passant  with  a  proper  name,  with 
no  other  motive  than  the  necessity  of  making  that  person 
commit  a  certain  action  which  shall  produce  a  certain  po- 
sition, from  which  the  poet  intends  to  derive  certain  ef- 
fects. Angelo  is  not  presented  to  us  at  the  outset  either 
as  a  rascal  or  as  a  hypocrite  ;  on  the  contrary,  he  is  a  man 
of  exaggeratedly  severe  virtue.  But  the  progress  of  the 
poem  requires  that  he  should  become  criminal,  and  crim- 
inal he  becomes;  when  his  crime  is  committed,  he  will 
repent  of  it  as  soon  as  the  poet  pleases,  and  will  find  him- 
self able  to  resume  without  effort  the  natural  course  of  his 
life,  which  had  been  interrupted  only  for  a  moment. 

Thus,  in  Shakspeare's  comedy,  the  whole  of  human  life 
passes  before  the  eyes  of  the  spectator,  reduced  to  a  sort 
of  phantasmagoria — a  brilliant  and  uncertain  reflection  of 
the  realities  portrayed  in  his  tragedy.  Just  when  the 
truth  seems  on  the  point  of  allowing  itself  to  be  caught, 
the  image  grows  pale,  and  vanishes ;  its  part  is  played, 
ana  it  disappears.  In  the  "Winter's  Tale,"  Leontes  is  as 
jealous,  sanguinary,  and  unmerciful  as  Othello  ;  but  his 
jealousy,  born  suddenly,  from  a  mere  caprice,  at  the  mo- 
ment when  it  is  necessary  that  the  plot  should  thicken, 

F 


S2  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

loses  its  fury  and  suspicion  as  suddenly,  as  soon  as  the  ac- 
tion has  reached  the  point  at  which  it  becomes  requisite 
to  change  the  situation.  In  "  Cymbeline" — which,  not- 
withstanding its  title,  ought  to  be  numbered  among  the 
comedies,  as  the  piece  is  conceived  in  entire  accordance 
with  the  same  system — Iachimo's  conduct  is  just  as  knav- 
ish and  perverse  as  that  of  Iago  in  "  Othello  ;"  but  his 
character  does  not  explain  his  conduct,  or,  to  speak  more 
correctly,  he  has  no  character ;  and,  always  ready  to  cast 
off  the  rascal's  cloak,  in  which  the  poet  has  enveloped  him, 
as  soon  as  the  plot  reaches  its  term,  and  the  confession  of 
the  secret,  which  he  alone  can  reveal,  becomes  necessary 
to  terminate  the  misunderstanding  between  Posthumus 
and  Imogen,  which  he  alone  has  caused,  he  does  not  even 
wait  to  be  asked,  but,  by  a  spontaneous  avowal,  deserves 
to  be  included  in  that  general  amnesty  which  should  form 
the  conclusion  of  every  comedy. 
>  I  might  multiply  these  examples  to  infinity ;  they  abound 
not  only  in  Shakspeare's  early  comedies,  but  also  in  those 
which  succeeded  the  composition  of  his  best  tragedies. 
In  all,  we  should  find  characters  as  unstable  as  passions, 
and  resolutions  as  changeful  as  characters.  Do  not  ex- 
pect to  find  probability,  or  consecutiveness,  or  profound 
study  of  man  and  society ;  the  poet  cares  little  for  these 
things,  and  invites  you  to  follow  his  example.  To  inter- 
est by  the  development  of  positions,  to  divert  by  variety 
of  pictures,  and  to  charm  by  the  poetic  richness  of  details 
— this  is  what  he  aims  at ;  these  are  the  pleasures  which 
he  offers.  There  is  no  interdependence,  no  concatenation 
of  events  and  ideas  ;  vices,  virtues,  inclinations,  intentions, 
all  become  changed  and  transformed  at  every  step.  Even 
absurdity  does  not  always  continue  to  characterize  the  in- 
dividual whorr  it  distinguishes  at  the  outset,     In  "  Cym- 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  8d 

Deline,"  the  imbecile  Cloton  becomes  almost  proud  and 
noble  when  opposing  the  independence  of  a  British  prince 
to  the  threats  of  a  Roman  ambassador  ;  and  in  "  Measure 
for  Measure,"  Elbow  the  constable,  whose  nonsensicalities 
furnish  the  diversion  of  one  scene,  speaks  almost  like  a 
man  of  sense  when,  in  a  subsequent  scene,  another  per- 
son is  appointed  to  enliven  the  dialogue.  Thus  negligent 
and  truant  is  the  flight  of  the  poet  through  these  capri- 
cious compositions  !  Thus  fugitive  are  the  light  creations 
with  which  he  has  animated  them  ! 

But,  then,  what  gracefulness  and  rapidity  of  movement, 
what  variety  of  forms  and  effects,  what  brilliancy  of  wit, 
imagination,  and  poetry — all  employed  to  make  us  forget 
the  monotony  of  their  romantic  frame-work  !  Doubtless, 
this  is  not  comedy  as  we  conceive  it,  and  as  Moliere  wrote 
it ;  but  who  but  Shakspeare  could  have  diffused  such 
treasures  over  so  frivolous  and  fantastic  a  style  of  com- 
edy ?  The  legends  and  tales  upon  which  his  plays  are 
founded  have  given  birth,  both  before  and  after  him,  to 
thousands  of  dramatic  works  which  are  now  plunged  in 
well-merited  oblivion.  A  king  of  Sicily,  jealous,  without 
knowing  why,  of  a  king  of  Bohemia,  determines  to  put 
his  wife  to  death,  and  to  expose  his  daughter ;  this  child, 
left  to  perish  on  the  shore  of  Bohemia,  but  saved  by  a 
shepherd  from  her  cruel  fate,  becomes,  after  sixteen  years 
have  elapsed,  a  marvelous  beauty,  and  is  beloved  by  the 
heir  to  the  crown.  After  all  the  obstacles  naturally  op- 
posed to  their  union,  arrives  the  ordinary  denouement  of 
explanations  and  recognitions.  This  story  truly  combines 
all  the  most  common  and  least  probable  features  of  the 
romances,  tales,  and  pastorals  of  the  time.  But  Shaks- 
peare takes  it,  and  the  absurd  fable  that  opens  the  "Win- 
ter's Tale"  becomes  interesting  by  the  brutal  truthfulness 


84  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

of  the  jealous  transports  of  Leontes,  the  amiable  character 
of  little  Mamillius,  the  patient  virtue  of  Hermione,  and 
the  generous  inflexibility  of  Paulina ;  and,  in  the  second 
part,  the  rural  festival,  with  its  gayety  and  joyous  inci- 
dents, and,  amid  the  rustic  scene,  the  charming  figure  of 
Perdita,  combining  with  the  modesty  of  an  humble  shep- 
herdess the  moral  elegance  of  the  superior  classes,  assur- 
edly present  the  most  piquant  and  graceful  picture  that 
truth  could  furnish  to  poetry.  What  particular  charm  is 
there  in  the  nuptials  of  Theseus  and  Hippolyta,  and  the 
hackneyed  incident  of  two  pairs  of  lovers  rendered  unhap- 
py by  one  another  ?  It  is  only  a  worn-out  combination, 
destitute  alike  of  interest  and  truth.  Yet  Shakspeare  has 
made  of  it  his  "  Midsummer  Night's  Dream  ;"  and  in  the 
midst  of  the  dull  intrigue,  he  introduces  Oberon  with  his 
elves  and  fairies,  who  live  upon  flowers,  run  upon  the 
blades  of  grass,  dance  in  the  rays  of  the  moon,  play  with 
the  light  of  the  morning,  and  fly  away,  "following  dark- 
ness like  a  team,"  as  soon  as  Aurora's  first  doubtful  rays 
begin  to  glimmer  in  the  sky.  Their  employments,  pleas- 
ures, and  tricks  occupy  the  scene,  participate  in  all  its 
incidents,  and  entwine  in  the  same  action  the  mournful 
destinies  of  the  four  lovers  and  the  grotesque  performances 
of  a  troop  of  artisans  ;  and  after  having  fled  away  at  the 
approach  of  the  sun,  when  Night  once  more  enshrouds 
earth  in  her  sombre  mantle,  they  will  resume  possession 
of  that  fantastic  world  into  which  we  have  been  transport- 
ed by  this  amazing  and  brilliant  extravaganza. 

In  truth,  it  would  be  acting  very  rigorously  toward  our- 
selves, and  very  ungratefully  toward  genius,  to  refuse  to 
follow  it  somewhat  blindly  when  it  invites  us  to  a  scene 
of  such  attraction.  Are  originality,  simplicity,  gayety, 
and  gracefulness  so  common  that  we  shall  treat  tboro  so- 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  85 

verely  because  they  are  lavished  on  a  slight  founda .  ion  of 
but  little  value  ?  Is  it  nothing  to  enjoy  the  divine  charm 
of  poetry  amid  the  improbabilities,  or,  if  you  will,  the  ab- 
surdities of  romance  ?  Have  we,  then,  lost  the  happy 
power  of  lending  ourselves  complacently  to  its  caprices  ? 
and  do  we  not  possess  sufficient  vivacity  of  imagination 
and  youthfulness  of  feeling  to  enjoy  so  delightful  a  pleas- 
ure under  whatever  form  it  may  be  offered  to  us  ? 

Five  only  of  Shakspeare's  comedies,  the  "  Tempest," 
the  "  Merry  Wives  of  "Windsor,"  "  Timon  of  Athens," 
"  Troilus  and  Cressida,"  and  the  "  Merchant  of  Venice," 
have  escaped,  at  least  in  part,  from  the  influence  of  the 
romantic  taste.  Some  will,  perhaps,  be  surprised  to  find 
this  merit  ascribed  to  the  "  Tempest."  Like  the  "  Mid- 
summer Night's  Dream,"  the  "  Tempest"  is  peopled  with 
sylphs  and  sprites,  and  every  thing  is  done  under  the  sway 
of  fairy  power.  But  after  having  laid  the  action  in  this 
unreal  world,  the  poet  conducts  it  without  inconsistency, 
complication,  or  languor ;  none  of  the  sentiments  are  forced, 
or  ceaselessly  interrupted  ;  the  characters  are  simple  and 
well  sustained  ;  the  supernatural  power  which  disposes 
the  events  undertakes  to  supply  all  the  necessities  of  the 
plot,  and  leaves  the  personages  of  the  drama  at  liberty  to 
show  themselves  in  their  natural  character,  and  to  swim 
at  ease  in  that  magical  atmosphere  by  which  they  are  sur- 
rounded, without  at  all  injuring  the  truthfulness  of  their 
impressions  or  ideas.  The  style  is  fantastic  and  spright- 
ly ;  but,  when  the  supposition  is  once  admitted,  there  is 
nothing  in  the  work  to  shock  the  judgment  and  disturb  the 
imagination  by  the  incoherence  of  the  effects  produced 

In  the  system  of  intrigued  comedy,  the  "  Merry  Wi\es 
of  "Windsor"  may  be  said  to  be  almost  perfect  in  its  com- 
position ;   it  presents  a  true  picture  of  manners ;   the  (U 


86  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

nouement  is  as  piquant  as  it  is  well-prepared ;  and  it  is 
assuredly  one  of  the  merriest  works  in  the  whole  comic 
repertory.  Shakspeare  evidently  aspired  higher  in  "  Ti- 
mon  of  Athens."  It  is  an  attempt  at  that  scientific  style 
in  which  the  ridiculous  is  made  to  flow  from  the  serious, 
and  which  constitutes  la  grande  comedie.  The  scenes  in 
which  Timon's  friends  excuse  themselves,  under  various 
pretexts,  from  rendering  him  assistance,  are  wanting  nei- 
ther in  truthfulness  nor  effect.  But,  then,  Timon's  misan- 
thropy, as  furious  as  his  confidence  had  previously  been 
extravagant — the  equivocal  character  of  Apemantus — the 
abruptness  of  the  transitions,  and  the  violence  of  the  sen- 
timents, form  a  picture  more  melancholy  than  true,  which 
is  scarcely  softened  down  enough  by  the  fidelity  of  the  old 
steward.  Though  far  inferior  to  "  Timon,"  the  drama  of 
"  Troilus  and  Cressida"  is  nevertheless  skillfully  conceiv- 
ed ;  it  is  based  upon  the  resolution  taken  by  the  Grecian 
chiefs  to  flatter  the  stupid  pride  of  Ajax,  and  make  him 
the  hero  of  the  army,  in  order  to  humble  the  haughty  dis- 
dainfulness of  Achilles,  and  to  obtain  from  his  jealousy 
that  which  he  had  refused  to  their  prayers.  But  the  idea 
is  more  comic  than  its  execution,  and  neither  the  buffoon- 
eries of  Thersites  nor  the  truthfulness  of  the  part  played 
by  Pandarus  are  sufficient  to  impart  to  the  piece  that 
mirthful  physiognomy  without  which  comedy  is  impos- 
sible. 

These  four  works,  which  are  less  akin  than  his  other 
comedies  to  the  romantic  system,  also  belong  more  com- 
pletely to  Shakspeare's  invention.  The  "  Merry  "Wives  of 
Windsor"  is  an  original  creation  ;  no  tale  has  been  discov- 
ered from  which  Shakspeare  could  have  borrowed  the  sub- 
ject of  the  "  Tempest ;"  the  composition  of  "  Timon  of 
Ath»  ns"  is  indebted  in  no  respect  to  Plutarch's  account  of 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  & 

that  misanthrope  ;  and  in  "  Troilus  and  Cressida"  Shaks* 
peare  has  copied  Chaucer  in  a  very  few  particulars. 

The  story  of  the  "  Merchant  of  Venice"  is  of  an  entire- 
ly romantic  character,  and  was  selected  by  Shakspeare, 
like  the  "  Winter's  Tale,"  «  Much  Ado  ahout  Nothing," 
"  Measure  for  Measure,"  and  other  plays,  merely  that  he 
might  adorn  it  with  the  graceful  brilliancy  of  his  poetry. 
But  one  incident  of  the  subject  conducted  Shakspeare  to 
the  confines  of  tragedy,  and  he  suddenly  became  aware  of 
his  domain  ;  he  entered  into  that  real  world  in  which  the 
comic  and  the  tragic  are  commingled,  and,  when  depicted 
with  equal  truthfulness,  concur,  by  their  combination,  to 
increase  the  power  of  the  effect  produced.  What  can  be 
more  striking,  in  this  style  of  dramatic  composition,  than 
the  part  assigned  to  Shylock  ?  This  son  of  a  degraded 
race  has  all  the  vices  and  passions  which  are  engendered 
by  such  a  position ;  his  origin  has  made  him  what  he  is, 
sordid  and  malignant,  fearful  and  pitiless ;  he  does  not 
think  of  emancipating  himself  from  the  rigors  of  the  law, 
but  he  is  delighted  at  being  able  to  invoke  it  for  once,  in 
all  its  severity,  in  order  to  appease  the  thirst  for  vengeance 
which  devours  him ;  and  when,  in  the  judgment  scene, 
after  having  made  us  tremble  for  the  life  of  the  virtuoua 
Antonio,  Shylock  finds  the  exactitude  of  that  law,  in  which 
he  triumphed  with  such  barbarity,  turned  unexpectedly 
against  himself — when  he  feels  himself  overwhelmed  nt 
pnce  by  the  danger  and  the  ridicule  of  his  position,  two 
>pposite  feelings — mirth  and  emotion — arise  almost  simul- 
taneously in  the  breast  of  the  spectator.  What  a  singular 
proof  is  this  of  the  general  disposition  of  Shakspeare's  mind ! 
He  has  treated  the  whole  of  the  romantic  part  of  the  dra- 
ma without  any  intermixture  of  comedy,  or  even  of  gay- 
ety  ;  and  we  can  discern  true  comedy  only  when  we  mee* 
vvifh  Shylock — that  is,  with  tragedy. 


88  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

It  is  utterly  futile  to  attempt  to  "base  any  classification 
of  Shakspeare's  works  on  the  distinction  between  the  comic 
and  tragic  elements  ;  they  can  not  possibly  be  divided  into 
these  two  styles,  but  must  be  separated  into  the  fantastic 
and  the  real,  the  romance  and  the  world.  The  first  class 
contains  most  of  his  comedies ;  the  second  comprehends 
all  his  tragedies — immense  and  living  stages,  upon  which 
all  things  are  represented,  as  it  were,  in  their  solid  form, 
and  in  the  place  which  they  occupied  in  a  stormy  and 
complicated  state  of  civilization.  In  these  dramas,  the 
comic  element  is  introduced  whenever  its  character  of  real- 
ity gives  it  the  right  of  admission  and  the  advantage  of 
opportune  appearance.  Falstaff  appears  in  the  train  of 
Henry  V.,  and  Doll  Tear-Sheet  in  the  train  of  Falstaff; 
the  people  surround  the  kings,  and  the  soldiers  crowd 
around  their  generals ;  all  conditions  of  society,  all  the 
phases  of  human  destiny  appear  by  turns  in  juxtaposition, 
with  the  nature  which  properly  belongs  to  them,  and  in 
the  position  which  they  naturally  occupy.  The  tragic  and 
comic  elements  sometimes  combine  in  the  same  individ- 
ual, and  are  developed  in  succession  in  the  same  charac- 
ter. The  impetuous  preoccupation  of  Hotspur  is  amus- 
ing when  it  prevents  him  from  listening  to  any  other  voice 
than  his  own,  and  substitutes  his  sentiments  and  words  in 
the  place  of  the  things  which  his  friends  are  desirous  to 
tell  him,  and  which  he  is  equally  anxious  to  learn ;  but 
it  becomes  serious  and  fatal  when  it  leads  him  to  adopt, 
without  due  examination,  a  dangerous  project  which  sud- 
denly inspires  him  with  the  idea  of  glory.  The  perverse 
obstinacy  which  renders  him  so  comical  in  his  dealings 
with  the  boastful  and  vainglorious  Glendower,  will  be  the 
tragical  cause  of  his  ruin  when,  in  contempt  of  all  reason 
and  advice,  and  unaided  by  any  succor,  he  hastens  to  the 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  89 

lattle-field,  upon  which,  ere  long,  left  alone,  he  looks 
around  and  sees  naught  hut  death.  Thus  we  find  the 
entire  world,  the  whole  of  human  realities,  reproduced  by 
Shakspeare  in  tragedy,  which,  in  his  eyes,  was  the  uni- 
versal theatre  of  life  and  truth. 

la  the  year  1595,  at  latest,  "Romeo  and  Juliet"  had 
appeared.  This  work  was  succeeded,  almost  without 
interruption,  until  1599,  hy  "  Hamlet,"  "  King  John," 
"  Richard  II.,"  "  Richard  III.,"  the  two  parts  of  "  Henry 
IV.,"  and  "  Henry  V."  From  1599  to  1605,  the  chrono- 
logical order  of  Shakspeare's  works  contains  none  hut 
comedies  and  the  play  of  "  Henry  VIII."  After  1605, 
tragedy  regains  the  ascendant  in  "  King  Lear,"  "  Mac- 
beth," "Julius  Caesar,"  "Antony  and  Cleopatra,"  "  Cori- 
olanus,"  and  "  Othello."  The  first  period,  we  perceive, 
belongs  rather  to  historical  plays  ;  and  the  second  to  trag- 
edy properly  so  called,  the  subjects  of  which,  not  being 
taken  from  the  positive  history  of  England,  allowed  the 
poet  a  wider  field,  and  permitted  the  free  manifestation 
of  all  the  originality  of  his  nature.  Historical  dramas, 
generally  designated  by  the  name  of  Histories,  had  en- 
joyed possession  of  popular  favor  for  nearly  twenty  years. 
Shakspeare  emancipated  himself  but  slowly  from  the  taste 
of  his  age  ;  though  always  displaying  more  grandeur,  and 
gaining  greater  approbation  in  proportion  as  he  abandoned 
himself  with  greater  freedom  to  the  guidance  of  his  own 
instinct — he  was  nevertheless  always  careful  to  accommo- 
date his  progress  to  the  advancement  of  his  audience  in 
their  appreciation  of  his  art.  It  appears  certain,  from  the 
dates  of  his  plays,  that  he  never  composed  a  single  trag- 
edy until  some  other  poet  had,  as  it  were,  felt  the  pulse 
of  the  public  on  the  same  subject ;  just  as  though  he  were 
conscious  that  he  possessel  within  himself  a  superiority 


90  SHAKSI'EARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

which,  before  it  could  be  trusted  to  the  taste  of  the  mul- 
titude,  required  the  exercise  of  a  vulgar  caution. 

It  can  not  be  doubted  that,  between  historical  dramas 
and  tragedies,  properly  so  called,  Shakspeare's  genius  in- 
clined in  preference  toward  the  latter  class.  The«general 
and  unvarying  opinion  which  has  placed  "  Romeo  and  Ju- 
liet," "  Hamlet,"  "  King  Lear,"  "  Macbeth,"  and  "  Othel- 
lo" at  the  head  of  his  works,  would  suffice  to  prove  this. 
Among  his  national  dramas,  "  Richard  III."  is  the  only 
one  which  has  attained  the  same  rank,  and  this  is  an  ad- 
ditional proof  of  the  truth  of  my  assertion ;  for  it  is  the  only 
work  which  Shakspeare  was  able  to  conduct,  in  the  same 
manner  as  his  tragedies,  by  the  influence  of  a  single  char- 
acter or  idea.  Herein  resides  the  fundamental  difference 
between  the  two  kinds  of  dramatic  works  ;  in  one  class, 
events  pursue  their  course,  and  the  poet  accompanies  them ; 
in  the  other,  events  group  themselves  around  a  man,  and 
seem  to  serve  only  to  bring  him  into  bold  relief.  "Julius 
Cse3ar"  is  a  true  tragedy,  and  yet  the  progress  of  the  piece 
is  framed  in  accordance  with  Plutarch's  narrative,  just  as 
"  King  John,"  "  Richard  II.,"  and  "  Henry  IV."  are  made 
to  coincide  with  Holinshed's  Chronicles  ;  but  in  the  first- 
named  piece,  Brutus  imparts  to  the  play  the  unity  of  a 
great  individual  character.  In  the  same  manner,  the  his- 
tory of  "  Richard  III."  is  entirely  his  own  history,  the  work 
of  his  design  and  will ;  whereas,  the  history  of  the  other 
kings  with  whom  Shakspeare  has  peopled  his  dramas  is 
only  a  part,  and  frequently  the  smallest  part,  of  the  pic- 
ture of  the  events  of  their  time. 

This  arises  from  the  fact  that  events  were  not  what 
chiefly  occupied  Shakspeare's  mind  ;  his  special  attention 
was  bestowed  upon  the  men  who  occasioned  them.  He 
establishes  his  domain,  not  in  historical,  but  in  dramatic 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  91 

truth.  Give  him  a  fact  to  represent  upon  the  stage,  and 
he  will  not  inquire  minutely  into  the  circumstances  which 
accompanied  it,  or  into  the  various  and  multiplied  causes 
which  may  have  combined  to  produce  it ;  his  imagination 
will  not  require  an  exact  picture  of  the  time  or  place  in 
which  it  occurred,  or  a  complete  acquaintance  with  the 
infinite  combinations  of  which  the  mysterious  web  of  des- 
tiny is  composed.  These  constitute  only  the  materials  of 
the  drama  ;  and  Shakspeare  will  not  look  to  them  to  fur- 
nish it  with  vitality.  He  takes  the  fact  as  it  is  related  to 
him  ;  and,  guided  by  this  thread,  he  descends  into  the 
depths  of  the  human  soul.  It  is  man  that  he  wishes  to 
resuscitate ;  it  is  man  whom  he  interrogates  regarding 
the  secret  of  his  impressions,  inclinations,  ideas,  and  vo- 
litions. He  does  not  inquire,  "What  hast  thou  done?" 
but,  "  How  art  thou  constituted  ?  Whence  originated  the 
part  thou  hast  taken  in  the  events  in  which  I  find  thee  con- 
cerned ?  "What  wert  thou  seeking  after  ?  What  could st 
thou  do  ?  Who  art  thou  ?  Let  me  know  thee  ;  and  then 
I  shall  know  in  what  respects  thy  history  is  important  to 
me." 

Thus  we  may  explain  that  depth  of  natural  truth  which 
reveals  itself,  in  Shakspeare's  works,  even  to  the  least 
practiced  eyes,  and  that  somewhat  frequent  absence  of 
local  truth  which  he  would  have  been  able  to  delineate 
with  equal  excellence  if  he  had  studied  it  with  equal  as- 
siduity. Hence,  also,  arises  that  difference  of  conception 
which  is  observable  between  his  historical  dramas  and  his 
tragedies.  Composed  in  accordance  with  a  plan  more  na- 
tional than  dramatic,  written  beforehand  in  some  sort  by 
events  well  known  in  all  their  details,  and  already  in  pos- 
session of  the  stage  under  determinate  forms,  most  of  his 
historical  plays  could  not  be  subjected  to  that  individual 


$2  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

unity  which  Shakspeare  delighted  to  render  dominant  in 
his  compositions,  but  which  so  rarely  holds  sway  in  the 
actual  narratives  of  history.  Every  man  has  usually  a 
very  small  share  in  the  events  in  which  he  has  taken  part ; 
and  the  brilliant  position  which  rescues  a  name  from  obliv- 
ion has  not  always  preserved  the  man  who  bore  it  from 
sinking  into  a  nullity.  Kings  especially,  who  are  forced 
to  appear  upon  the  stage  of  the  world  independently  of 
their  aptitude  to  perform  their  part  upon  it,  frequently  af- 
ford less  assistance  than  embarrassment  to  the  conduct 
of  an  historical  action.  Most  of  the  princes  whose  reigns 
furnished  Shakspeare  with  his  national  dramas,  undoubt- 
edly exercised  some  influence  upon  their  own  history ;  but 
none  of  them,  with  the  exception  of  Richard  III.,  wrought 
it  out  entirely  for  himself.  Shakspeare  would  have  sought 
in  vain  to  discover,  in  their  conduct  and  personal  nature, 
that  sole  cause  of  events,  that  simple  and  pregnant  truth, 
which  was  called  for  by  the  instinct  of  his  genius.  While, 
therefore,  in  his  tragedies,  a  moral  position,  or  a  strongly 
conceived  character,  binds  and  confines  the  action  in  a 
powerful  knot,  from  whence  the  facts  as  well  as  the  sen- 
timents of  the  drama  issue  to  return  thither  again,  his  his- 
torical plays  contain  a  multitude  of  incidents  and  scenes 
which  are  destined  rather  to  fill  up  the  action  than  to  fa- 
cilitate its  progress.  As  events  pass  in  succession  before 
his  view,  Shakspeare  stops  them  to  catch  some  few  de- 
tails, which  suffice  to  determine  their  character ;  and 
these  details  he  derives,  not  from  the  lofty  or  general 
causes  of  the  facts,  but  from  their  practical  and  familiar 
results.  An  historical  event  may  originate  in  a  very  ex- 
alted source,  but  it  always  descends  to  a  very  low  position ; 
it  matters  little  that  its  sources  be  concealed  in  the  ele- 
vated summits  of  social  order,  it  ever  reaches  its  consum- 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  93 

mation  in  the  popular  masses,  producing  among  them  a 
widely-diffused  and  manifest  effect  and  feeling.  At  this 
point,  Shakspeare  seems  to  wait  for  events,  and  here  he 
takes  his  stand  to  portray  them.  The  intervention  of  the 
people,  who  hear  so  heavy  a  part  of  the  weight  of  history, 
is  assuredly  legitimate,  at  least  in  historical  representa- 
tions. It  was,  moreover,  necessary  to  Shakspeare.  Those 
partial  pictures  of  private  or  popular  history,  which  lie  far 
behind  its  great  events,  are  brought  by  Shakspeare  to  the 
front  of  the  stage,  and  placed  in  prominent  relief ;  indeed, 
we  feel  that  he  relies  upon  them  to  impart  to  his  work  the 
form  and  coloring  of  reality.  The  invasion  of  France, 
the  battle  of  Agincourt,  the  marriage  of  a  daughter  of 
France  to  a  king  of  England,  in  whose  favor  the  French 
monarch  disinherits  the  dauphin,  are  not  sufficient,  in  his 
opinion,  to  occupy  the  whole  of  the  historical  drama  of 
"  Henry  V. ;"  so  he  summons  to  his  aid  the  comic  erudi- 
tion of  the  brave  Welshman,  Fluellen,  the  conversations  of 
the  king  with  the  soldiers,  Pistol,  Nym,  and  Bardolph,  all 
the  subaltern  movement  of  an  army,  and  even  the  joyous 
loves  of  Catharine  and  Henry.  In  the  two  parts  of  "  Hen- 
ry IV.,"  the  comedy  is  more  closely  connected  with  the 
events,  and  yet  it  does  not  emanate  from  them.  Even  if 
FalstafT  and  his  crew  occupied  less  space,  the  principal 
facts  would  not  be  less  determinate,  and  would  not  fculow 
another  course  ;  but  these  facts  have  only  supplied  Shaks- 
peare with  the  external  conformation  of  the  drama ;  the 
incidents  of  private  life,  the  comic  details,  Hotspur  and  his 
wife,  and  FalstafT  and  his  companions,  give  it  life  and  an. 
imation. 

In  true  tragedy,  every  circumstance  assumes  another 
characisr  and  another  aspect;  no  incident  is  isolated,  or 
alien  to  'he  very  substance  of  the  drama ;  no  link  is  slight 


•4  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

or  fortuitous.  The  events  grouped  around  the  principal 
personage  present  themselves  to  view  with  the  importance 
which  they  derive  from  ';he  impression  that  he  receives 
of  them ;  to  him  they  ac. dress  themselves,  and  from  him 
they  proceed  ;  he  is  the  reginning  and  the  end,  the  instru- 
ment and  the  object  o;'  the  decrees  of  God,  who,  in  th« 
world  which  He  has  created  for  man,  wills  that  e\ery 
thing  should  he  done  'ijy  the  hands  of  man,  and  nothing 
according  to  his  designs.  God  employs  the  human  will 
to  accomplish  intentions  which  man  never  entertained, 
and  allows  him  to  proceed  freely  toward  a  goal  which  he 
has  not  selected.  But  though  man  is  exposed  to  the  in- 
fluence of  events,  he  does  not  fall  into  subjection  to  them  ; 
if  impotence  be  his  condition,  liberty  is  his  nature  ;  the 
feelings,  ideas,  and  wishes  with  which  he  is  inspired  by 
external  objects  emanate  from  himself  alone  ;  in  him  re- 
sides an  independent  and  spontaneous  power  which  re- 
jects and  defies  the  empire  to  which  his  destiny  is  sub- 
jected. Thus  was  the  world  constituted,  and  thus  has 
Shakspeare  conceived  tragedy.  Give  him  an  obscure  and 
remote  event ;  let  him  be  bound  to  conduct  it  toward  a 
determinate  result,  through  a  series  of  incidents  more  or 
less  known ;  amid  these  facts  he  will  place  a  passion  or  a 
character,  and  put  all  the  threads  of  the  action  into  the 
hands  of  the  creature  of  his  own  origination.  Events  fol- 
low their  course,  and  man  enters  upon  his ;  he  employs 
his  power  to  divert  them  from  the  direction  which  he  does 
not  wish  them  to  pursue,  to  conquer  them  when  they 
thwart  him,  and  to  elude  them  when  they  embarrass 
him  ;  he  subjects  them  for  a  moment  to  his  authority,  to 
find  them  soon  acting  with  greater  hostility  toward  him 
in  the  new  course  which  he  has  forced  them  to  take  ;  and 
at  last  he  succumbs  entirely  in  the  struggle  in  which  his 
destiny  and  his  life  have  gone  to  wreck. 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  95 

The  power  of  man  in  conflict  with  the  power  of  fate — 
this  is  the  spectacle  which  fascinated  and  inspired  the  dra- 
matic genius  of  Shakspeare.  Perceiving  it  for  the  first 
time  in  the  catastrophe  of  "  Romeo  and  Juliet,"  he  fell 
his  will  suddenly  terror-struck  at  the  aspect  of  the  vast 
disproportion  which  exists  between  the  efforts  of  man  and 
the  inflexibility  of  destiny — between  the  immensity  of  our 
desires  and  the  nullity  of  our  means.  In  "  Hamlet,"  the 
second  of  his  tragedies,  he  reproduces  this  picture  with  a 
sort  of  shuddering  dread.  A  feeling  of  duty  has  prescribed 
to  Hamlet  a  terrible  project ;  he  does  not  think  that  any 
thing  can  permit  him  to  evade  it ;  and  from  the  very  out- 
set, he  sacrifices  every  thing  to  it — his  love,  his  self-respect, 
his  pleasures,  and  even  the  studies  of  his  youth.  He  has 
now  only  one  object  in  the  world — to  prove  and  punish  the 
crime  which  had  caused  his  father's  death.  That,  in  or- 
der to  accomplish  this  design,  he  must  break  the  heart  of 
her  he  loves ;  that,  during  the  course  of  the  incidents  which 
he  originates  in  order  to  effect  his  purpose,  a  mistake  ren- 
ders him  the  murderer  of  the  inoffensive  Polonius ;  that 
he  himself  becomes  an  object  of  mirth  and  contempt — he 
cares  not,  does  not  even  bestow  a  thought  upon  it ;  these 
are  the  natural  results  of  his  determination,  and  in  this  de- 
termination his  whole  existence  is  concentrated.  But  he  is 
desirous  to  accomplish  his  plan  with  certainty ;  he  wishes  to 
feel  assured  that  the  blow  will  be  legitimate,  and  that  it 
will  not  fail  to  strike  home.  Henceforward  accumulate  in 
his  path  those  doubts,  difficulties,  and  obstacles  which  the 
course  of  things  invariably  sets  in  opposition  to  the  man 
who  aims  at  subjecting  it  to  his  will.  By  bestowing  a  less 
philosophical  observation  upon  these  impediments,  Hamlet 
would  surmount  them  more  easily  ;  but  the  hesitation  and 
dread  which  they  inspire  form  part  of  their  povrer,  and 


96  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

Hamlet  must  undergo  its  entire  influence.  Nothing,  how- 
ever, can  shake  his  resolution,  nothing  divert  him  from  hii! 
purpose  :  he  advances,  slowly  it  is  true,  with  his  eyes  con. 
stantly  fixed  upon  his  object;  whether  he  originates  an  op- 
portunity,  or  merely  appropriates  one  already  existing,  ev- 
ery step  is  a  progress,  until  he  seems  to  border  on  the  final 
term  of  his  design.  But  time  has  had  its  career  ;  Provi  ■ 
dence  is  at  its  limit ;  the  events  which  Hamlet  has  pre- 
pared hasten  onward  without  his  co-operation ;  they  are 
consummated  by  him,  and  to  his  own  destruction  ;  and  he 
falls  a  victim  to  those  decrees  whose  accomplishment  he 
has  insured,  destined  to  show  how  little  man  can  avail  to 
effect,  even  in  that  which  he  most  ardently  desires. 

Already  more  inured  to  the  contemplation  of  human  life, 
Richard  III.,  at  the  commencement  of  his  sanguinary  ca- 
reer, contemplates,  with  steady  gaze,  that  immense  dis- 
proportion before  which  the  thought  of  the  courageous  but 
inexperienced  Hamlet  had  incessantly  quailed.  Richard 
merely  promises  himself  greater  pride  and  pleasure  from 
the  subjugation  of  this  hostile  power ;  and  resolves  to  give 
the  lie  to  fate,  which  appeared  to  have  destined  him  to 
abasement  and  contempt.  In  fact,  we  behold  him  ruling, 
like  a  conqueror,  the  chances  of  his  life ;  events  spring 
from  his  hands  bearing  the  impress  of  his  will ;  just  as 
his  thought  conceives  them,  his  power  accomplishes  them  ; 
he  completes  what  he  has  projected,  raises  his  existence 
to  a  level  with  his  ambition,  and  falls  at  the  moment  ap- 
pointed by  inflexible  destiny,  to  render  the  punishment  of 
his  crimes  more  striking,  by  inflicting  it  in  the  midst  of 
his  successes.  Macbeth,  Othello,  Coriolanus,  all  equally 
active  and  blind  in  the  conduct  of  their  destiny,  bring  down 
upon  themselves,  in  the  same  manner,  with  all  the  force 
of  a  passionate  will,  the  event  which  is  fated  to  crush  them. 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  97 

Brutus  dies  in  consequence  of  the  death  of  Caesar  ;  no  one 
desired  more  than  himself  the  blow  which  killed  him ;  no 
one  resolved  on  his  death  by  a  freer  choice  of  his  reason ; 
he  had  not,  like  Hamlet,  a  ghost  to  dictate  to  him  his  duty ; 
in  himself  alone  he  found  that  severe  law  to  which  he  sac- 
rificed his  repose,  his  affections,  and  his  inclinations ;  no 
one  is  more  thoroughly  master  of  himself ;  and  yet,  like 
all  the  rest,  he  dies,  powerless  to  resist  fate.  With  him 
perishes  the  liberty  which  he  aspired  to  save ;  the  hope 
of  rendering  his  death  useful  does  not  even  flash  across 
his  mind;  and  yet  Shakspeare  does  not  make  him  exclaim, 
when  dying,  "  0  Virtue,  thou  art  only  an  empty  name !" 
And  why  not  ?  Because  above  this  terrible  conflict  of 
man  against  necessity  soars  his  moral  existence,  inde- 
pendent and  sovereign,  free  from  all  the  perils  of  the  com- 
bat. The  mighty  genius  whose  view  had  embraced  the 
whole  destiny  of  man  could  not  have  failed  to  recognize 
its  sublime  secret ;  a  sure  instinct  revealed  to  him  this 
final  explanation,  without  which  all  is  darkness  and  un- 
certainty. Furnished,  therefore,  with  the  moral  thread 
which  never  breaks  in  his  hands,  he  proceeds  with  firm 
steps  through  the  embarrassments  of  circumstances  and 
the  perplexities  of  varied  feelings  ;  nothing  can  be  sim- 
pler at  bottom  than  Shakspeare' s  action  ;  nothing  less 
complicated  than  the  impression  which  it  leaves  upon  our 
minds.  Our  interest  is  never  divided,  and  still  less  does 
it  waver  between  two  opposite  inclinations,  or  two  equally 
powerful  affections.  As  soon  as  the  characters  become 
known,  and  their  position  is  developed,  our  choice  is  made ; 
we  know  what  we  desire  and  what  we  fear,  whom  we 
hate  and  whom  weiove.  There  is  also  as  little  conflict 
of  duties  as  of  interests ;  and  the  conscience  wavers  no 

more  than  the  affections.     In  the  midst  of  political  revo- 

E 


98  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

lutions,  in  times  when  society  is  at  war  with  itself,  anc 
can  no  longer  guide  individuals  by  those  laws  which  it 
has  imposed  upon  them  for  the  maintenance  of  its  unity, 
then  alone  does  Shakspeare's  judgment  hesitate,  and  al- 
low ours  to  hesitate  also ;  he  can  himself  no  longer  ac- 
curately determine  on  which  side  lies  the  right,  or  what 
duty  requires,  and  he  is  therefore  unable  to  tell  us.  "  King 
John,"  "Richard  II.,"  and  the  three  parts  of  "Henry 
VI.,"  furnish  examples  of  this.  In  every  other  drama, 
the  moral  position  is  evident,  free  from  ambiguity,  and 
undisguised  by  complaisance  ;  the  characters  are  not  rep- 
resented as  deceiving  or  deceived,  hovering  between  vice 
and  virtue,  weakness  and  crime  ;  what  they  are,  they  are 
frankly  and  openly  ;  their  actions  are  depicted  in  vigorous 
outlines,  so  that  even  the  weakest  eyesight  can  not  mis- 
take them.  And  yet — so  admirable  is  his  perception  of 
truths — in  these 'actions,  so  positive,  complete,  and  con- 
sistent,  all  the  inconsistencies  and  fantastic  mixtures  of 
human  nature  exist  and  are  displayed.  Macbeth  has  fully 
made  up  his  mind  to  crime ;  no  link  binds  his  conduct 
any  longer  to  virtue  ;  and  yet  who  can  doubt  that,  in  the 
character  of  Macbeth,  side  by  side  with  the  passions  which 
stimulate  him  to  crime,  there  still  exist  those  inclinations 
which  constitute  virtue  ?  The  mother  of  Hamlet  has  set 
no  bounds  to  her  incestuous  love ;  she  knows  her  crime 
and  boldly  commits  it ;  her  position  is  that  of  a  shameless 
culprit ;  but  her  soul  is  that  of  a  woman  capable  of  lov- 
ing modesty,  and  finding  happiness  within  the  bounds  of 
duty.  Even  Claudius  himself,  the  wretch  Claudius,  would 
wish  to  be  able  still  to  pray ;  he  can.  not  do  so,  but  he 
wishes  he  could.  Thus  the  keen  vision  of  the  philosopher 
enlightens  and  directs  the  imagination  of  the  poet;  thus 
man  appears  to  Shakspcare  only  when  fully  furnished  with 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  99 

all  that  belongs  to  his  nature.     The  truth  is  always  there, 
before  the  eyes  of  the  poet :  he  looks  down  and  writes. 

But  there  is  one  truth  which  Shakspeare  does  not  ob- 
serve in  this  manner,  which  he  derives  from  himself,  and 
without  which  all  the  external  truths  which  he  contem- 
plates would  be  merely  cold  and  sterile  images  ;  and  that 
is,  the  feeling  which  these  truths  excite  within  him.  This 
feeling  is  the  mysterious  bond  which  unites  us  to  the  outer 
world,  and  makes  us  truly  know  it ;  when  our  mind  has 
taken  realities  into  consideration,  our  soul  is  moved  by  an 
analogous  and  spontaneous  impression  ;  but  for  the  anger 
with  which  we  are  inspired  by  the  sight  of  crime,  whence 
should  we  obtain  the  revelation  of  that  element  which  ren- 
ders crime  odious?  No  one  has  ever  combined,  in  an 
equal  degree  with  Shakspeare,  this  double  character  of  an 
impartial  observer  and  a  man  of  profound  sensibility.  Su- 
perior to  all  by  his  reason,  and  accessible  to  all  by  sym- 
pathy, he  sees  nothing  without  judging  it,  and  he  judges 
it  because  he  feels  it.  Could  any  one  who  did  not  detest 
Iago  have  penetrated,  as  Shakspeare  has  done,  into  the 
recesses  of  his  execrable  character  ?  To  the  horror  with 
which  he  regards  the  criminal  must  be  ascribed  the  ter- 
rible energy  of  the  language  which  he  puts  into  his  mouth. 
Who  could  make  us  tremble,  so  much  as  Lady  Macbeth 
herself,  at  the  action  for  which  she  prepares  with  so  little 
fear  ?  But  when  it  becomes  needful  to  express  pity  or 
tenderness,  the  unrestraint  of  love,  the  extravagance  of 
maternal  apprehension,  or  the  stern  and  deep  grief  of  man- 
ly affection — then  the  observer  may  quit  his  post,  and  the 
judge  his  tribunal.  Shakspeare  himself  develops  all  the 
abundance  of  his  nature,  and  gives  expression  to  those 
familiar  feelings  of  his  soul  which  are  set  in  motion  by 
the   slightest   contact   with   his    imagination.     Women, 


100  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

children,  old  men — who  has  described  them  with  such 
truthfulness  as  he  ?  Where  the  ingenuousness  of  requited 
affection  given  birth  to  a  purer  flower  than  Desdemona  ? 
Has  old  age,  when  shamefully  deserted,  and  driven  to 
madness  by  the  weakness  of  senility  and  the  violence  of 
grief,  ever  given  utterance  to  more  pathetic  lamentations 
than  in  "  King  Lear  ?"  Who  has  not  felt  his  heart  assail- 
ed by  all  the  emotions  of  anguish  which  childhood  ca  n  in- 
spire, on  beholding  the  scene  in  which  Hubert,  in  per- 
formance of  his  promise  to  King  John,  is  about  to  burn 
out  the  eyes  of  young  Arthur  ?  And  if  this  barbarous 
project  were  carried  into  execution,  who  could  endure  it? 
But  in  such  a  case  Shakspeare  would  not  have  described 
the  scene.  There  is  an  excess  of  grief  in  presence  of 
which  he  pauses  ;  he  takes  pity  on  himself,  and  repels 
impressions  too  powerful  to  be  borne.  Scarcely  does  he 
permit  Juliet  to  utter  any  words  between  Romeo's  death 
and  her  own  ;  Macduff  is  silent  after  the  massacre  of  his 
wife  and  children ;  and  Constance  dies  before  we  are  al- 
lowed to  behold  the  death  of  Arthur.  Othello  alone  ap- 
proaches the  whole  of  his  sufferings  without  mitigation  ; 
but  his  misfortune  was  so  horrible,  when  he  was  ignorant 
of  it,  that  the  impression  which  he  receives  from  it,  after 
the  discovery  of  his  error,  becomes  almost  a  consolation. 

Thus  moved  by  all  that  moves  us,  Shakspeare  obtains 
our  confidence  ;  we  yield  ourselves  in  security  to  that  open 
soul  in  which  our  feelings  have  already  reverberated,  and 
to  that  ready  imagination  which  is  as  much  illumined  by 
the  splendid  sun  of  Italy  as  darkened  by  the  sombre  fogs 
of  Denmark.  Dramatic  in  the  portraiture  of  a  mother's 
gambols  with  her  child,  and  simple  in  the  terrible  appari- 
tion which  opens  the  first  scene  of  "  Hamlet,"  the  poet  is 
never  unequal  to  the  realities  which  ho  has  to  delineate, 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  101 

nr  the  man  to  the  emotions  with  which  he  wishes  to  im- 
bue our  hearts. 

Why,  then,  are  we  sometimes  painfully  compelled  te 
pause  while  following  him  ?  Why  does  a  sort  of  impa- 
tience and  fatigue  frequently  disturb  the  admiration  which 
we  feel  for  his  works  ?  One  misfortune  happened  to  Shaks- 
peare  ;  though  he  was  always  lavish  of  his  wealth,  he  was 
not  always  able  to  distribute  it  either  opportunely  or  skill- 
fully. This  was  frequently  the  misfortune  of  Corneille 
also.  Ideas  accumulated  about  Corneille,  as  about  Shaks- 
peare,  confusedly  and  tumultuously,  and  neither  of  them 
had  the  courage  to  treat  his  own  mind  with  prudent  se- 
verity. They  forgot  the  position  of  the  character  they 
were  describing,  in  order  to  indulge  in  the  thoughts  which 
it  awakened  in  the  soul  of  the  poet.  In  Shakspeare,  es- 
pecially, this  excessive  indulgence  in  his  own  ideas  and 
feelings  sometimes  arrests  and  interrupts  the  emotions 
awakened  in  the  breast  of  the  spectator,  in  a  manner 
which  is  fatal  to  the  dramatic  effect.  It  is  not  merely,  as 
in  Corneille,  the  ingenious  loquacity  of  a  rather  talkative 
mind  ;  but  it  is  the  restless  and  fantastic  reverie  of  a  mind 
astonished  at  its  own  discoveries,  not  knowing  how  to  re- 
produce the  whole  impression  which  it  has  received  from 
them,  and  heaping  ideas,  images,  and  expressions  one  upon 
another,  in  order  to  awaken  in  us  feelings  similar  to  those 
by  which  it  is  itself  oppressed.  The  feelings  developed  at 
such  length  are  not  always,  however,  those  which  should 
properly  occupy  the  personage  by  whom  they  are  express- 
ed ;  and  not  only  is  the  harmony  of  the  position  injured 
by  them,  but  we  find  ourselves  compelled  to  undertake  a 
certain  labor  which,  in  the  end,  diverts  our  attention  from 
the  subject  on  which  it  ought  to  be  concentrated.  Though 
always  simple  in  their  emotions,  the  heroes  of  Shakspeare 


102  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

are  not  always  equally  simple  in  their  speeches  ;  though 
always  true  and  natural  in  their  ideas,  they  are  not  as 
constantly  true  and  natural  in  the  combinations  which 
they  form  from  them.  The  poet's  gaze  embraced  an  im- 
mense field,  and  his  imagination,  traversing  it  with  mar- 
velous rapidity,  perceived  a  thousand  distant  or  singular 
relations  between  the  objects  which  met  his  view,  and 
passed  from  one  to  another  by  a  multitude  of  abrupt  and 
curious  transitions,  which  it  afterward  imposed  upon  both 
the  personages  of  the  drama  and  the  spectators.  Hence 
arose  the  true  and  great  fault  of  Shakspeare,  the  only  one 
that  originated  in  himself,  and  which  is  sometimes  per- 
ceptible even  in  his  finest  compositions  ;  and  that  is,  a  de- 
ceptive appearance  of  laborious  research,  which  is  occa- 
sioned, on  the  contrary,  by  the  absence  of  labor.  Accus- 
tomed, by  the  taste  of  his  age,  frequently  to  connect  ideas 
and  expressions  by  their  most  distant  relations,  he  con- 
tracted the  habit  of  that  learned  subtlety  which  perceives 
and  assimilates  every  thing,  and  leaves  no  point  of  resem- 
blance unnoticed ;  and  this  fault  has  more  than  once 
marred  the  gayety  of  his  comedies,  as  well  as  destroyed 
the  pathos  of  his  tragedies.  If  meditation  had  taught 
Shakspeare  to  fall  back  upon  himself,  to  contemplate  his 
own  strength,  and  to  concentrate  it  by  skillful  manage- 
ment, he  would  soon  have  rejected  the  abuse  which  he  has 
made  of  it,  and  would  have  speedily  become  conscious  that 
neither  his  heroes  nor  his  spectators  could  follow  him  in 
that  prodigious  movement  of  ideas,  feelings,  and  intentions 
which,  on  every  occasion,  and  under  the  slightest  pretext, 
arose  and  obtruded  themselves  upon  his  own  thought. 

But  so  far  as  we  are  able,  at  the  present  day,  to  form 
any  idea  of  Shakspeare's  character,  from  the  scattered  and 
uncertain  details  which  have  reached  us  regardinar  his  lifa 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  103 

and  person,  we  have  every  reason  to  believe  that  he  never 
bestowed  so  much  care  either  on  his  labors  or  on  his  glory. 
More  disposed  to  enjoy  his  own  powers  than  to  turn  them 
to  their  best  account — docile  to  the  inspiration,  rather  than 
guided  by  the  consciousness  of  his  genius — vexed  but  little 
by  a  craving  after  success,  and  more  inclined  to  doubt  its 
value  than  attentive  to  the  means  of  obtaining  it — the 
poet  advanced  without  measuring  his  progress,  unvailing 
himself,  as  it  were,  at  every  step,  and  perhaps  retaining, 
even  at  the  end  of  his  career,  some  remains  of  ingenuous 
ignorance  of  the  marvelous  riches  which  he  scattered  so 
lavishly  in  every  direction.  His  sonnets  alone,  of  all  his 
works,  contain  a  few  allusions  to  his  personal  feelings,  and 
to  the  condition  of  his  soul  and  life  ;  but  we  rarely  meet 
in  them  with  the  idea,  so  natural  to  a  poet,  of  the  immor- 
tality which  his  works  are  destined  to  achieve.  He  could 
not  have  been  a  man  who  reckoned  much  upon  posterity, 
or  who  cared  at  all  about  it,  who  ever  displayed  so  little 
anxiety  to  throw  light  upon  the  only  monuments  of  his  pri- 
vate existence  which  posterity  possesses  concerning  him 

Printed  for  the  first  time  in  1609,  these  sonnets  were, 
doubtless,  published  with  Shakspeare's  consent,  although 
nothing  seems  to  indicate  that  he  took  the  slightest  part 
in  their  publication.  Neither  his  publisher  nor  himself 
has  endeavored  to  impart  to  them  an  historical  interest  by 
naming  the  persons  to  whom  they  were  addressed,  or  the 
occasions  which  inspired  their  composition.  Thus  the  light 
which  they  throw  upon  some  of  the  circumstances  of  his 
life  is  often  so  doubtful  that  it  tends  rather  to  perplex  than 
to  guide  the  biographer.  The  passionate  style  which  per- 
vades them  all — even  those  which  are  evidently  addressed 
merely  to  a  friend — has  thrown  the  commentators  upon 
Shakspeare  into  great  embarrassment.     Of  all  the  conjee- 


t04  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

tures  which  have  been  hazarded  in  explanation  of  this  fact, 
one  alone,  in  my  opinion,  seems  to  possess  any  likelihood. 
At  a  time  when  the  mind,  tormented,  as  it  were,  by  ita 
youth  and  inexperience,  tried  all  forms  of  expression,  ex- 
cept  simplicity — and  at  a  court  in  which  euphuism,  the 
fashionable  language,  had  introduced  the  most  whimsical 
travesties,  both  of  persons  and  ideas,  into  familiar  conver- 
sation— it  is  possible  that,  in  order  to  express  real  feelings, 
the  poet  may  sometimes  have  assumed,  in  these  fugitive 
compositions,  the  tone  and  language  of  conventionality. 
It  is  known,  from  a  pamphlet  published  in  1598,  that 
Shakspeare's  "  sugar'd  sonnets,"  which  were  already  cele- 
brated, although  they  had  not  yet  been  printed,  were  the 
delight  of  his  private  circle  of  friends ;  and  if  it  be  re- 
marked that  the  idea  which  terminates  them  is  almost 
always  repeated,  with  variations,  in  several  successive  son- 
nets, we  shall  feel  strongly  tempted  to  regard  them  as  the 
simple  amusements  of  a  mind  which  could  never  resist  the 
opportunity  of  expressing  an  ingenious  idea.  Not  only, 
therefore,  are  Shakspeare's  sonnets  insufficient  to  explain 
the  facts  to  which  they  allude,  but  it  is  only  by  a  more  or 
less  logical  process  of  induction  that  they  can  be  made  to 
supply  any  details  regarding  the  occupations  of  Shaks- 
peare's life  during  his  residence  in  London,  and  during 
those  thirty  years,  now  so  glorious,  regarding  which  he  has 
been  at  such  pains  to  supply  us  with  no  information. 

Perhaps  his  position,  as  well  as  his  character,  may  havo 
contributed  to  cause  this  silence.  A  feeling  of  pride,  aa 
much  as  a  sentiment  of  modesty,  may  have  induced  Shaks- 
peare  to  leave  in  oblivion  an  existence  which  gave  him  but 
little  satisfaction.  The  condition  of  an  actor  then  possess- 
ed, in  England,  neither  consistency  nor  reputation.  "What- 
ever difference  Hamlet  may  place 'between  strolling  play- 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  ]!)* 

era  and  those  who  belonged  to  an  established  theatre,  the 
latter  could  not  but  bear  the  weight  of  the  coarseness  of 
the  public  upon  whom  they  were  dependent,  as  well  as 
that  of  the  colleagues  with  whom  they  shared  the  task  of 
diverting  the  public.  The  general  fondness  for  theatrical 
amusements  furnished  employment  to  persons  of  every 
'ondition,  from  those  who  engaged  in  bear-baitings,  to  the 
choristers  of  St.  Paul's  and  the  players  of  Blackfriars.  It 
was  probably  of  some  theatre  holding  a  middle  rank  be- 
tween these  two  extremes  that  Shakspeare  gives  us  so  amus- 
ing a  description  in  the  "  Midsummer  Night's  Dream." 
But  the  means  of  illusion  to  which  the  artisan  performers 
of  this  drama  have  recourse,  are  in  no  respect  inferior  to 
those  of  which  the  most  distinguished  theatres  made  use. 
The  actor,  covered  "with  lime  and  rough-cast,"  who  rep- 
resents the  wall  that  separated  Pyramus  and  Thisbe,  and 
moves  his  fingers  to  provide  "  the  chink  through  which 
the  lovers  whisper,"  and  the  man  who,  with  his  lantern, 
his  dog,  and  his  thorn-bush,  "  doth  the  horned  moon  pre- 
sent," did  not  require  a  much  greater  stretch  of  the  im- 
agination of  the  spectators  than  was  necessary  to  regard 
the  same  scene  as  a  garden  full  of  flowers  ;  then,  without 
any  changes,  as  a  rock  upon  which  a  vessel  has  just  suf- 
fered shipwreck  ;  and,  finally,  as  a  field  of  battle,  upon 
which  "  two  armies  fly  in,  represented  with  four  swords 
and  bucklers."*  There  is  reason  to  believe  that  all  these 
performances  collected  together  very  nearly  the  same  au- 
dience ;  at  least,  it  is  certain  that  Shakspeare's  plays  were 
performed  both  at  Blackfriars  and  at  the  Globe,  two  dif- 
ferent theatres,  although  both  belonged  to  the  same  troop. 
Strolling  players  were  accustomed  to  give  their  per- 

*  See  the  ironical  description  of  the  uncouth  state  of  the  stage,  giveh 
by  Sir  Philip  Sidney  in  his  "  Defense  of  Poesy." 


106  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

formances  in  the  court-yards  of  inns.  The  stage  was 
erected  in  one  corner,  while  the  spectators  occupied  the 
remainder  of  the  yard,  standing,  like  the  actors,  in  the 
open  air ;  the  lower  rooms  and  the  gallery  which  ran  round 
the  court,  were  doubtless  opened  to  the  public  at  a  higher 
rate  of  admission.  The  London  theatres  were  constructed 
upon  this  plan ;  and  those  which  were  called  "public  play- 
houses," in  opposition  to  the  "  private  theatres,"  kept  up 
the  custom  of  performing  in  the  open  air,  without  any 
other  canopy  than  the  sky.  The  Grlobe  was  a  public  the- 
atre, and  the  Blackfriars  a  private  one  ;  these  last  estab- 
lishments doubtless  occupied  a  superior  rank ;  and,  at  a 
later  period,  to  frequent  the  Blackfriars  theatre  was  re- 
garded as  a  mark  of  elegant  taste  and  superior  discern- 
ment. But  such  distinctions  are  incapable  of  being  clear- 
ly denned,  and  when  Shakspeare  appeared  on  the  stage 
these  shades  of  difference  were  probably  very  confused. 
In  1609,  Decker  wrote  a  pamphlet  entitled  "  The  Gul's 
Horne-booke,"  which  contains  a  chapter,  "  How  a  gallant 
should  behave  himself  in  a  play-house."  We  learn  from 
this  authority  that  a  gentleman,  on  entering  a  public  or 
private  theatre,  should  walk  at  once  on  the  stage,  and  sit 
down  either  on  the  ground  or  on  a  stool,  as  he  found  it 
convenient  to  pay  for  a  seat  or  not.  He  must  valiantly 
keep  his  post,  in  spite  of  the  gibes  and  insults  of  the  pop- 
ulace in  the  pit ;  because  it  becomes  a  gentleman  to  laugh 
at  "  the  mews  and  hisses  of  the  opposed  rascality."  How- 
ever, if  the  multitude  should  begin  to  shout  "  Out  with 
the  fool !"  the  danger  becomes  sufficiently  serious  for  good 
taste  to  permit  the  gentleman  to  withdraw.  During  the 
performance,  the  common  people  were  supplied  with  beer 
and  apples,  of  which  the  actors  also  frequently  partook  ; 
while  the  gentlemen,  on  their  side,  smoked  their  pipes  and 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  107 

played  at  cards  ;  indeed,  it  was  not  at  all  unusual  for  the 
elegant  habitues  of  the  theatre  to  begin  a  game  at  cards 
before  the  commencement  of  the  play.  "  The  G-ul's  Horne- 
booke"  recommends  them  to  play  with  an  appearance  of 
great  eagerness,  even  if  they  return  the  money  to  each 
other  at  supper-time  ;  and  nothing,  says  Decker,  can  gb  e 
greater  notoriety  to  a  gentleman  than  to  throw  his  cards 
on  the  stage,  after  having  torn  up  three  or  four  of  them 
with  every  manifestation  of  rage.  The  duties  of  the  spec- 
tators in  possession  of  the  honors  of  the  stage  were  to  speak, 
to  laugh,  and  to  turn  their  backs  on  the  actors  whenever 
they  were  displeased  with  either  the  author  or  the  play. 
These  pleasures  of  the  gentlemen  give  a  sufficient  clue  to 
those  of  the  populace  in  the  pit,  whom  contemporary  writ- 
ers usually  designate  by  the  name  of  "  stinkards."  The 
condition  of  the  actors  compelled  to  minister  to  the  amuse- 
ment of  such  an  audience  could  not  but  be  attended  by 
more  than  one  unpleasantness,  and  we  may  attribute  to 
Skakspeare's  experience  of  an  actor's  life  that  aversion  for 
popular  assemblies  which  is  frequently  displayed  with  great 
energy  in  his  works. 

Nor  do  the  condition  and  habits  of  the  poets  who  wrote 
for  the  stage  give  us  a  more  honorable  idea,  in  these  two 
respects,  of  the  actors  with  whom  they  associated  ;  and,  in 
order  to  suppose  that  Shakspeare,  young,  gay,  and  easy- 
tempered,  could  have  escaped  from  the  influence  of  his 
two- fold  character  of  poet  and  actor,  we  need  the  assistance 
of  that  unshrinking  faith  which  the  commentators  repose 
in  their  patron.  Shakspeare  himself  leaves  us  little  room 
to  doubt  that  he  fell  into  errors,  which  he  at  least  has  the 
merit  of  regretting.  In  one  of  his  sonnets,  he  inquires 
why  Fortune,  whom  he  calls 

"The  guilty  goddess  of  my  harmful  deeds," 


108  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

should  alone  bear  the  reproach  of  the  "  public  means"  U 
which  he  has  been  obliged  to  resort  for  his  subsistence 
And  he  adds : 

"  Thence  comes  it  that  my  name  receives  a  brand ; 
And  almost  thence  my  nature  is  subdued 
To  what  it  works  in,  like  the  dyer's  hand. 
Pity  me,  then,  and  wish  I  were  renewed, 
While,  like  a  willing  patient,  I  will  drink 
Potions  of  eysel*  'gainst  my  strong  infection ; 
No  bitterness  that  I  will  bitter  think, 
Nor  double  penance  to  correct  correction." 

In  the  next  sonnet,  addressing  the  same  person,  still  in 
the  same  tone  of  confident  yet  respectful  affection,  he 
says  : 

"  Your  love  and  pity  doth  th'  impression  fill 
Which  vulgar  scandal  stamped  upon  my  brow  ; 
For  what  care  I  who  calls  me  well  or  ill, 
So  you  o'er-green  my  bad,  my  good  allow?" 

In  another  sonnet,  he  laments  over  the  blot  which  had  di- 
vided two  lives  united  by  affection,  and  says  : 

"  I  may  not  evermore  acknowledge  thee, 
Lest  my  bewailed  guilt  should  do  thee  shame ; 
Nor  thou  with  public  kindness  honor  me, 
Unless  thou  take  that  honor  from  my  name." 

And  in  another  sonnet,  he  complains  that  he  is,  if  not  ca- 
lumniated, at  least  wrongly  judged  ;  and  that  the  "frail- 
ties of  his  sportive  blood"  are  spied  out  by  censors,  who 
are  frailer  than  himself.  It  is  easy  to  divine  the  nature 
of  Shakspeare's  frailties ;  and  several  sonnets  on  the  in- 
fidelities, and  even  on  the  vices,  of  the  mistress  whom  he 
celebrates,  give  sufficient  proof  that  his  errors  were  not 
always  caused  by  persons  capable  of  excusing  them.  How- 
ever, how  can  we  suppose  that,  in  the  state  of  morals  in 

*  Vinegar. 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  10J 

the  sixteenth  century,  public  severity  could  have  looked 
with  great  rigor  on  such  disorders  ?  In  order  to  explain 
the  humiliation  of  the  poet,  we  must  suppose  either  that 
he  had  been  guilty  of  some  extraordinarily  scandalous 
conduct,  or  that  particular  dishonor  attached  to  the  disor- 
ders and  position  of  an  actor.  The  latter  hypothesis  ap- 
pears to  me  the  most  probable.  No  grave  reproach  can, 
at  any  time,  have  weighed  upon  a  man  whose  contem- 
poraries never  speak  of  him  without  affection  and  esteem, 
and  whom  Ben  Jonson  declares  to  have  been  "  truly  hon- 
est," without  deriving  from  this  assertion  either  the  oppor- 
tunity or  the  right  of  relating  some  circumstance  disgrace- 
ful to  his  memory,  or  some  well-known  error  which  the 
officious  rival  would  not  have  failed  to  establish  while 
excusing  it. 

Perhaps,  on  being  brought  into  contact  with  the  higher 
classes  of  society,  struck  by  the  display  of  a  relative  ele- 
gance of  sentiments  and  manners  of  which  he  had  pre- 
viously had  no  idea,  and  becoming  suddenly  aware  that 
his  nature  gave  him  a  right  to  participate  in  these  delica- 
cies which  had  hitherto  been  foreign  to  his  habits,  Shaks- 
peare  felt  himself  oppressed,  by  his  position,  with  painful 
shackles ;  perhaps  even  he  was  led  to  exaggerate  his  hu- 
miliation, by  the  natural  disposition  of  a  haughty  soul, 
which  feels  itself  all  the  more  abased  by  an  unequal  con- 
dition, because  it  is  conscious  of  its  worthiness  to  enjoy 
equality.  At  all  events,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that,  with 
that  measured  circumspection  which  is  as  frequently  the 
accompaniment  of  pride  as  of  modesty,  Shakspeare  labor- 
ed to  overleap  these  humiliating  differences  of  station,  and 
succeeded  in  his  attempt.  His  first  dedication  to  Lord 
Southampton,  that  of  "  Venus  and  Adonis,"  is  written 
with  respectful  timidity.      That  of  the  poem   of  "Lu- 


110  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

creoe,"  which  was  published  in  the  following  year,  ex- 
presses grateful  attachment,  which  feels  sure  of  being  well 
received  ;  and  he  vows  to  his  protector  "  love  without 
end."  The  resemblance  of  the  tone  of  this  preface  to  that 
of  a  great  many  of  the  sonnets,  the  repeated  benefits  in 
which  the  friendship  of  Lord  Southampton  enabled  their 
recipient  to  glory,  and  the  lively  affection  with  which  the 
sensitive  and  confident  Shakspeare  was  naturally  inspired 
by  the  amiable  and  generous  protection  of  a  young  man 
of  such  brilliant  rank  and  merit — all  these  circumstances 
have  led  some  of  the  commentators  to  suppose  that  Lord 
Southampton  may  have  been  the  object  of  the  poet's  in- 
explicable sonnets.  "Without  inquiring  to  what  extent 
the  euphuism  then  prevalent,  the  exaggeration  of  poetic 
language,  and  the  false  taste  of  the  age,  may  have  im- 
parted to  Lord  Southampton  the  features  of  an  adored 
mistress,  we  can  not  but  admit  that  most  of  these  sonnets 
are  addressed  to  a  person  of  superior  rank,  the  devotion 
of  the  poet  to  whom  bears  the  character  of  submissive  but 
passionate  respect.  Several  of  them,  also,  seem  to  point 
to  habitual  and  intimate  literary  connections.  Sometimes 
Shakspeare  congratulates  himself  on  possessing  the  guid- 
ance and  inspiration  of  his  friend ;  and  sometimes  he 
complains  that  he  has  ceased  to  be  the  sole  recipient  of 
that  inspiration,  and  says, 

"  I  grant  thou  vert  not  married  to  my  Muse ;" 

but  yet  the  grief  occasioned  by  this  divided  favor  is  ex- 
pressed under  all  the  forms  of  jealousy,  sometimes  resign- 
ed to  its  fate,  and  sometimes  stimulated,  by  the  bitterness 
of  its  feelings,  to  give  utterance  to  strong  reproaches, 
which,  however,  never  transgress  the  bounds  of  respect. 
Elsewhere  he  accuses  himself,  as  it  would  appear,  of  in- 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  Ill 

fidelity  to  "  an  old  friend ;"  he  has  too  "  frequent  been 
with  unknown  minds,"  and  "  given  to  time"  the  "  dear- 
purchased  rights"  of  an  affection 

"  Whereto  all  bonds  do  tie  me  day  by  day ;" 

but  he  confesses  his  fault;  and  implores  pardon  in  the 
name  of  the  confidence  with  which  he  is  always  inspired 
by  the  affection  he  has  neglected.  Another  sonnet  speaks 
of  mutual  wrongs  pardoned,  but  the  sorrow  of  which  is 
still  present.  If  these  are  not  mere  forms  of  language, 
employed,  perhaps,  on  occasions  very  different  from  those 
which  they  appear  to  indicate,  the  feeling  which  thus  oc- 
cupied the  inner  life  of  the  poet  must  have  been  as  tem- 
pestuous as  it  was  passionate. 

Externally,  however,  his  existence  seems  to  have  pur- 
sued a  tranquil  course.  His  name  is  mixed  up  in  no  lit- 
erary quarrel ;  and,  but  for  the  malicious  allusions  of  the 
envious  Ben  Jonson,  scarcely  would  a  single  criticism  be 
associated  with  the  panegyrics  which  bear  witness  to  his 
superiority.  All  the  documents  which  we  possess  exhibit 
Shakspeare  to  us  placed  at  last  in  the  position  which  he 
was  rightfully  entitled  to  occupy,  and  valued  as  much  for 
the  charm  of  his  character  as  for  the  brilliancy  of  his 
talents,  and  the  admiration  due  to  his  genius.  A  glance, 
too,  at  the  affairs  of  the  poet  will  prove  that  he  was  be- 
ginning to  introduce  into  the  details  of  his  existence  that 
order  and  regularity  which  are  essential  to  respectabilitv 
We  find  him  successively  purchasing,  in  his  native  town, 
a  house  and  various  portions  of  land,  which  soon  formed 
a  sufficient  estate  to  insure  him  a  competent  income.  The 
profits  which  he  derived  from  the  theatre,  in  his  double 
capacity  of  author  and  actor,  have  been  estimated  at  two 
hundred  pounds  a-  year,  a  very  considerable  sum  at  that 


112  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

time;  and  if  the  liberalities  of  Lord  Southampton  weie 
added  to  the  economy  of  the  poet,  we  may  conclude  that, 
at  least,  they  were  not  unwisely  employed.  Rowe,  in  his 
Life  of  Shakspeare,  seems  to  think  that  the  gifts  of  Queen 
Elizabeth  also  had  some  share  in  building  up  the  fortune 
of  her  favorite  poet.  The  grant  of  an  escutcheon  which 
was  made,  or  rather  confirmed  to  his  father  in  1599, 
proves  a  desire  to  bestow  honor  on  his  family.  But  thero 
is  nothing  to  indicate  that  Shakspeare  obtained  from 
Elizabeth  and  her  court  any  marks  of  distinction  supe- 
rior, or  even  equal  to  those  conferred  by  Louis  XIV.  upon 
Moliere,  like  himself  an  actor  and  a  poet.  If  we  except 
his  intimacy  with  Lord  Southampton,  Shakspeare,  like 
Moliere,  chose  his  habitual  acquaintance  chiefly  among 
men  of  letters,  whose  social  condition  he  had  probably 
contributed  to  elevate.  ,  The  Mermaid  Club,  founded  by 
Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  and  of  which  Shakspeare,  Ben  Jon- 
son,  Beaumont,  Fletcher,  and  many  others  were  mem- 
bers, was  long  celebrated  for  the  brilliant  "  wit-combats," 
which  took  place  there  between  Shakspeare  and  Ben  Jon- 
son,  and  in  which  the  vivacity  of  the  former  gave  him  an 
immense  advantage  over  the  laborious  slowness  of  his  op- 
ponent. The  anecdotes  which  are  quoted  on  this  point 
are  not  worthy  of  being  collected  at  the  present  day.  Few 
bons-mots  are  sufficiently  good  to  survive  for  two  cen- 
turies. 

Who  would  not  suppose  that  a  life  which  had  become 
so  honorable  and  pleasant  would  long  have  retained  Shaks- 
peare in  the  midst  of  society  conformable  to  the  necessi- 
ties of  his  mind,  and  upon  the  theatre  of  his  glory?  Nev- 
ertheless, in  1613,  or  1614  at  the  latest,  three  or  four 
years  after  having  obtained  from  James  I.  the  direction 
of  the  Blackfriars  Theatre,  without  having  apparently  in- 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  Ill 

curred  the  displeasure  of  the  king  to  whom  he  was  in- 
debted  for  this  new  mark  of  favor,  or  of  the  public  foi 
whom  he  had  just  produced  "  Othello"  and  '  The  Tem- 
pest," Shakspeare  left  London  and  the  stage  to  take  up 
his  residence  at  Stratford,  in  his  house  at  New  Place,  in 
the  midst  of  his  fields.  Had  he  become  anxious  to  taste 
the  joys  of  family  life  ?  He  might  have  brought  his  wife 
and  children  to  London.  Nothing  seems  to  indicate  that 
he  was  greatly  grieved  at  separation  from  them.  During 
his  residence  in  London,  he  used,  it  is  said,  to  make  fre- 
quent journeys  to  Stratford  ;  but  he  has  been  accused  of 
having  found,  on  the  road,  pleasures  of  a  kind  which  may 
have  consoled  him,  at  least,  for  the  absence  of  his  wife ; 
and  Sir  "William  Davenant  used  loudly  to  boast  of  the 
poet's  intimacy  with  his  mother,  the  pretty  and  witty 
hostess  of  the  Crown,  at  Oxford,  where  Shakspeare  al- 
ways stopped  on  his  way  to  Stratford.  If  Shakspeare's 
sonnets  were  to  be  regarded  as  the  expression  of  his  dear- 
est and  most  habitual  feelings,  we  might  reasonably  be 
astonished  at  not  finding  in  them  a  single  allusion  to  his 
native  place,  to  his  children,  or  even  to  the  son  whom  he 
lost  at  twelve  years  of  age.  And  yet  Shakspeare  could 
not  have  been  ignorant  of  the  power  of  paternal  love.  He 
who,  in  "  Macbeth,"  has  described  pity  as  "  a  naked, 
new-born  babe ;"  he  who  has  put  these  words  into  the 
mouth  of  Coriolanus, 

"  Not  of  a  woman's  tenderness  to  be, 
Requires  nor  child  nor  woman's  face  to  see ;" 

he  who  has  so  well  depicted  the  tender  puerilities  of  ma- 
ternal affection,  could  not  have  looked  upon  his  own  chil- 
d  ren  without  experiencing  the  fond  emotions  of  a  father's 
heart.  But  Shakspeare,  as  his  character  presents  itself  to 
our  mind,  had  long  been  able  to  find,  in  the  distractions 

H 


114  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

of  the  world,  enough  to  occupy  the  place,  in  his  soul  and 
life,  which  he  was  capable  of  giving  up  to  family  affec- 
tions. However  this  may  he,  it  is  more  difficult  to  dis- 
cern the  causes  which  led  to  his  departure  from  London, 
than  to  perceive  those  which  might  have  tended  to  pro- 
long his  residence  in  that  city.  Perhaps  the  arrival  of  in- 
firmities may  have  warned  him  of  the  necessity  of  repose  ; 
and  perhaps,  also,  the  very  natural  desire  of  showing  him- 
self in  his  native  place,  under  circumstances  so  different 
from  those  in  which  he  had  left  it,  made  him  hasten  the 
moment  of  renouncing  labors  which  no  longer  had  the 
pleasures  of  youth  for  their  compensation. 

New  pleasures  could  not  fail  to  spring  up  for  Shaks- 
peare  in  his  retirement.  A  natural  disposition  to  enjoy 
every  thing  heartily  rendered  him  equally  adapted  to  de- 
light in  the  calm  happiness  of  a  tranquil  life,  and  to  find 
enjoyment  in  the  vicissitudes  of  an  agitated  existence. 
The  first  mulberry-tree  introduced  into  the  neighborhood 
of  Stratford  was  planted  by  Shakspeare's  hands,  in  a  cor- 
ner of  his  garden  at  New  Place,  and  attested  for  more  than 
a  century  the  gentle  simplicity  of  the  occupations  in  which 
his  days  were  spent.  A  competent  fortune  seemed  to 
unite  with  the  esteem  and  friendship  of  his  neighbors  to 
promise  him  that  best  crown  of  a  brilliant  life,  a  tranquil 
and  honored  old  age,  when,  on  the  23d  of  April,  1616,  the 
very  day  on  which  he  attained  his  fifty-second  year,  death 
carried  him  off  from  that  calm  and  pleasant  position,  the 
happy  leisure  of  which  he  would  doubtless  not  have  con- 
secrated to  repose  alone. 

We  have  no  information  regarding  the  nature  of  the  dis- 
ease to  which  he  fell  a  victim.  His  will  is  dated  on  the 
25th  of  March,  1616  ;  but  the  date  of  February,  effaced 
to  make  way  for  that  of  March,  gives  us  reason  to  believe 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  115 

that  he  had  commenced  it  a  month  previously.  He  de« 
clares  that  he  had  written  it  in  perfect  health  ;  but  the 
precaution  taken  thus  opportunely,  at  an  age  still  so  dis- 
tant from  senility,  leads  to  the  presumption  that  some  un- 
pleasant symptom  had  awakened  within  him  the  idea  of 
danger.  There  is  no  evidence  either  to  confirm  or  to  set 
aside  this  supposition  ;  and  Shakspeare's  last  days  are  sur- 
rounded by  an  obscurity  even  deeper,  if  possible,  than  that 
which  enshrouds  his  life. 

His  will  contains  nothing  very  remarkable,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  a  new  proof  of  the  little  estimation  in  which  he 
held  the  wife  whom  he  had  so  hastily  married.  After 
having  appointed  his  daughter  Susannah,  who  had  married 
Mr.  Hall,  a  physician  at  Stratford,  his  chief  legatee,  he 
bequeaths  tokens  of  friendship  to  various  persons,  among 
whom  he  does  not  include  his  wife,  but  mentions  her  aft- 
erward, in  an  interlineation,  merely  to  leave  to  her  his 
"  second  best  bed."  A  similar  piece  of  forgetfulness,  re- 
paired in  the  same  manner,  is  remarkable  in  reference  to 
Burbage,  Heminge,  and  Condell,  the  only  ones  of  his  the- 
atrical friends  of  whom  he  makes  mention ;  to  each  of 
these  he  bequeaths,  also  in  an  interlineation,  thirty-six 
shillings,  "  to  buy  them  rings."  Burbage,  the  best  actor 
of  his  time,  had  contributed  greatly  to  the  success  of 
Shakspeare's  plays ;  Heminge  and  Condell,  seven  years 
after  his  death,  published  the  first  complete  edition  of  his 
dramatic  works. 

This  singular  omission  of  the  name  of  Shakspeare's 
wife,  repaired  in  so  slight  a  manner,  probably  indicates 
something  more  than  forgetfulness ;  and  we  are  tempted 
to  regard  it  as  the  sign  of  an  aversion  or  dislike,  the  man- 
ifestation of  which  the  poet  was  induced  to  m  »dify,  in  a 
slight  degree,  by  the  approach  of  death  alone. 


116  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

Shakspeare's  second  daughter,  Judith,  had  married  & 
vintner,  and  received  a  much  smaller  share  o.^  her  father's 
inheritance  than  her  sister,  Mrs.  Hall.  "Was  it  in  her  qual- 
ity of  eldest  daughter,  or  in  consequence  of  some  special 
predilection,  that  Shakspeare  thus  distinguished  Susan- 
nah ?  An  epitaph  engraved  upon  her  tomb,  at  her  death 
in  1649,  represents  her  as  "  witty  ahove  her  sex,"  in  which 
she  had  "  something  of  Shakspeare,"  hut  more  because 
she  was  "  wise  to  salvation,"  and  "  wept  for  all."  About 
Judith  we  know  nothing,  except  that  she  could  not  write  ; 
which  fact  is  established  by  a  deed  still  existing,  to  which 
she  has  affixed  a  cross,  or  some  analogous  sign,  indicated 
by  a  marginal  note  as  "  Judith  Shakspeare,  her  mark." 
Judith  left  three  sons,  who  died  childless.  Susannah  had 
one  daughter,  who  married,  first,  Thomas  Nash,  and  aft- 
erward Sir  John  Barnard,  of  Abington.  No  child  was 
born  of  either  of  these  marriages,  and  thus  Shakspeare's 
posterity  became  extinct  in  the  second  generation. 

It  is  somewhat  remarkable  that  Shakspeare  died  on  the 
same  day  as  his  great  contemporary,  Cervantes. 

Shakspeare  was  buried  in  Stratford  church,  in  which 
his  tomb  still  exists.  It  represents  the  poet  of  the  size  of 
life,  sitting  under  an  arch,  with  a  cushion  before  him,  and 
a  pen  in  his  right  hand.  Like  many  other  monuments  oi 
the  time,  the  figure  was  originally  colored  after  the  life ; 
the  eyes  being  painted  light  brown,  with  hair  and  beard 
of  a  deeper  tinge.  The  doublet  was  scarlet,  and  the  gown 
black.  The  colors  having  become  faded  by  time,  were  re- 
stored, in  1748,  by  Mr.  John  Ward,  the  grandfather  of  Mrs. 
Siddons  and  of  Kcmble,  out  of  the  profits  of  a  performance 
of  "  Othello."  But  in  1793,  Mr.  Malone,  one  of  the  prin- 
cipal commentators  upon  Shakspeare,  covered  the  statue 
with  a  thick  coat  of  white  paint ;  being  doubtless  led  tc 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  117 

do  this  by  that  exclusive  prejudice  in  favor  of  modern  cus- 
toms which  has  so  frequently  led  him  into  error  in  his 
commentaries.  An  indignant  traveler,  in  some  lines  writ- 
ten in  the  Album  of  Stratford  church,  has  called  down 
the  malediction  of  the  poet  upon  Malone, 

"  Whose  meddling  zeal  his  barb'rous  taste  displays, 
And  smears  his  tombstone,  as  he  marred  his  plays." 

"Without  giving  an  absolute  assent  to  these  harsh  ex- 
pressions of  legitimate  anger,  we  can  not  refrain  from  a 
smile  at  observing,  in  Mr.  Malone's  coat  of  white  paint,  a 
symbol  of  the  spirit  which  dictated  his  commentaries,  as 
well  as  a  tpye  of  the  general  character  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  held  in  servitude  by  its  own  tastes,  and  incapable 
of  comprehending  any  thing  that  did  not  enter  into  the 
sphere  of  its  ordinary  habits  and  ideas. 

Although  this  injudicious  reparation  effected  a  great 
change  in  the  physiognomy  of  the  portrait  of  Shakspeare, 
it  was  not  able  altogether  to  efface  that  expression  of 
gentle  serenity  which  appears  to  have  characterized  the 
countenance  as  well  as  the  soul  of  the  poet.  On  the  se- 
pulchral stone  below  the  monument,  the  following  inscrij 
fcion  is  engraved : 

"  Good  friend,  for  Jesus  sake  forbear 
To  dig  the  dust  inclosed  here. 
Bless'd  be  the  man  that  spares  these  stones, 
And  cursed  be  he  that  moves  my  bones." 

These  lines  are  said  to  have  been  composed  by  Shaks- 
peare himself,  and  were  the  cause  which  prevented  the 
transference  of  his  tomb  to  Westminster,  as  had  once  been 
intended.  Some  years  ago,  an  excavation  by  the  wall  of 
Stratford  church  exposed  to  view  the  grave  in  which  his 
body  had  been  laid  ;  and  the  sexton,  who,  in  order  to  pre- 
vent the  sacrilegious  depredations  of  curiosity  or  admira- 
tion, kept  guard  by  the  opening  until  the  vault  had  been 


118  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

repaired,  having  attempted  to  look  inside  the  tomb,  saw 
neither  bones  nor  coffin,  but  only  dust.  "  It  seems  to  me,'; 
says  the  traveler  who  relates  this  circumstance,  "that  it 
was  something  to  have  seen  the  dust  of  Shakspeare." 

This  tomb  now  remains  in  sole  possession  of  the  honors 
which  it  once  shared  with  Shakspeare's  mulberry-tree. 
About  the  middle  of  last  century,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Grastrell, 
a  man  of  large  fortune,  became  the  proprietor  of  New 
Place.  This  house,  which  had  remained  for  some  time 
in  the  possession  of  the  Nash  family,  had  afterward  passed 
through  several  hands,  and  undergone  many  alterations ; 
but  the  mulberry-tree  remained  standing,  the  object  of 
the  veneration  of  the  curious.  Mr.  Grastrell,  annoyed  at 
the  number  of  visitors  which  it  attracted,  had  it  cut  down, 
with  a  savage  brutality  in  which  indifference  would  prob- 
ably not  have  indulged,  but  which  frequently  character- 
izes that  furious  pride  of  liberty  and  property  which  would 
deem  itself  compromised  if  it  yielded  in  the  slightest  de- 
gree to  public  opinion.  A  few  years  afterward,  this  same 
Mr.  Grastrell,  in  consequence  of  a  dispute  which  he  had 
had  with  the  town  of  Stratford  regarding  a  slight  tax 
which  he  was  required  to  pay  on  his  house,  swore  that 
that  house  should  never  be  taxed  again,  and  he  therefore 
had  it  pulled  down,  and  sold  the  materials.  As  for  the 
mulberry-tree,  part  of  it  was  saved  from  the  fire  to  which 
it  had  been  consigned  by  Mr.  Grastrell,  by  a  clock-maker 
of  Stratford,  a  man  of  sense,  who  gained  a  great  deal  of 
money  by  making  it  into  snuff-boxes,  toys,  and  other  ar- 
ticles. The  house  in  which  Shakspeare  was  born  still 
exists  at  Stratford,  and  is  still  shown  as  an  object  of  in- 
terest to  travelers,  who  may  always  see,  ami,  ir  is  said, 
are  constantly  able  to  purchase,  either  the  chair  or  the 
sword  of  the  poet,  the  lantern  which  he  used  in  perform* 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  119 

ing  the  part  of  Friar  Lawrence  in  "  Romeo  and  Juliet/' 
or  pieces  of  the  arquebuse  with  which  he  killed  the  deer 
in  Sir  Thomas  Lucy's  park. 

It  is  not  from  the  death  of  Shakspeare  that  we  must 
date,  in  England,  that  worship,  the  devotedness  of  which, 
after  having  been  maintained  with  such  fervor  for  sixty 
years,  seems  now  to  have  diffused  a  reflection  of  its  heat 
over  several  countries  of  Europe.  Though  Shakspeare  was 
dead,  Ben  Jonson  still  lived;  and  though  Beaumont  had 
lost  his  friend  Fletcher,  he  still  possessed  his  talent,  the 
effects  of  which  had  been  weakened,  rather  than  fortified, 
by  Fletcher.  The  necessities  of  curiosity  too  often  over- 
come those  of  taste ;  and  the  pleasure  of  going  again  to 
admire  Shakspeare  could  not  fail  to  yield  to  the  keener 
interest  of  going  to  judge  the  newest  productions  of  his 
competitors.  It  was  not  to  his  dramatic  pedantry  that 
Ben  Jonson  was  then  indebted  for  the  empire  which, 
in  Shakspeare's  lifetime,  he  did  not  venture  to  aspire  tc 
share.  The  triumphs  of  classical  taste  were  confined,  in 
his  case,  to  the  unanimous  eulogies  of  the  literary  men  of 
his  time,  who  were  easily  satisfied  on  the  score  of  regu- 
larity, and  were,  always  glad  of  an  opportunity  to  avenge 
science  upon  the  disdain  of  the  vulgar  ;  but  the  tragedies 
and  comedies  of  Ben  Jonson  were  not  the  less  coolly  re- 
ceived by  the  public,  and  were  sometimes  even  rejected 
with  an  irreverence  for  which  he  afterward  took  his  re- 
venge in  his  prefaces.  But  his  masques,  a  kind  of  opera, 
obtained  general  success  ;  and  the  more  Ben  Jonson  and 
tho  erudite  strove  to  render  tragedy  and  comedy  tiresome, 
the  more  strongly  did  the  public  fall  back  upon  masques 
for  their  amusement.  Several  poets  of  Shakspeare's  schoo 
also  endeavored  to  satisfy  the  taste  of  the  public  for  the 
kind    of  pleasure   to  which    he   had    accustomed   them 


120  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

Their  efforts,  attended  with  varying  success,  but  main- 
tained with  untiring  activity,  kept  up  that  taste  for  the 
drama  which  survives  the  epoch  of  its  master-pieces 
About  five  hundred  and  fifty  dramas,  without  reckoning 
those  of  Shakspeare,  Ben  Jonson,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher, 
were  printed  before  the  Restoration  of  Charles  II.  Of 
these  only  thirty-eight  can  date  from  times  anterior  to 
Shakspeare ;  and  it  has  been  seen  that,  during  his  life, 
the  custom  was  not  to  print  those  plays  which  were  in- 
tended for  representation  on  the  stage.  From  1640  t«. 
1660,  the  Puritans  closed  nearly  all  the  theatres  ;  and 
most  of  these  productions,  therefore,  belong  to  the  twenty- 
five  years  which  elapsed  between  the  death  of  Shakspeare 
and  the  commencement  of  the  civil  wars.  This  was  the 
weight  beneath  which  the  popularity  of  England's  first 
dramatic  poet  succumbed  for  a  time. 

His  memory,  however,  did  not  perish.  In  1623,  Hem- 
inge  and  Condell  published  the  first  complete  edition  of  his 
dramas,  thirteen  of  which  only  had  been  printed  during 
his  lifetime.  His  name  was  still  held  in  respect ;  but  for 
a  finished  reputation  to  inspire  something  beside  respect, 
time  must  come  to  its  aid,  and  must  at  first  efface  and  sur> 
press  it,  to  give  it  at  some  future  time  the  attraction  of  a 
neglected  glory,  and  to  stimulate  the  self-love  and  curi- 
osity of  inquiring  minds  to  give  it  new  life  by  a  new  ex- 
amination, and  to  find  in  it  the  charm  of  a  new  discovery. 
A  great  writer  rarely  obtains,  in  the  generation  succeed- 
ing his  own,  the  homage  which  posterity  will  lavish  upon 
him.  Sometimes  even  long  spaces  of  time  are  necessarv 
for  the  revolution  commenced  by  a  superior  man  to  accom- 
plish its  course,  and  to  bring  the  world  to  perceive  its 
merits.  Several  causes  combined  to  prolong  the  interval 
during  which  Shakspeare's  works  were  regarded  with  cold- 
ness, and  almost  utterly  forgotten. 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  12J 

The  civil  wars  and  the  triumph  of  Puritanism  occurred 
first,  not  only  to  interrupt  all  dramatic  performances,  but 
to  destroy,  as  far  as  possible,  every  trace  of  amusement  of 
this  kind.  The  Restoration  afterward  introduced  into  En- 
gland a  foreign  taste,  which  did  not,  perhaps,  pervade  tho 
nation,  but  which  held  sway  over  the  court.  English  lit- 
srature  then  assumed  a  character  which  was  not  effaced 
by  the  new  revolution  of  1688  ;  and  French  ideas,  made 
honorable  by  the  literary  glory  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
and  sustained  by  that  of  the  eighteenth,  retained  in  En- 
gland a  youthful  and  vigorous  influence  which  had  been 
lost  by  the  old  glories  of  Shakspeare.  Fifty  years  after  his 
death,  Dry  den  declared  that  his  idiom  was  a  little  "  out  of 
use."  At  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century,  Lord 
•Shaftesbury  complained  of  his  "  natural  rudeness,  his  un- 
polished style,  and  his  antiquated  phrase  and  wit ;"  and 
Shakspeare  was  then,  for  these  reasons,  excluded  from  sev- 
eral collections  of  the  modern  poets.  In  fact,  Dryden  did 
not  understand  Shakspeare,  grammatically  speaking ;  of 
this  fact  we  have  several  proofs,  and  Dryden  himself  has 
proved,  by  recasting  his  pieces,  that  poetically  he  compre- 
hended him  as  little.  But  not  only  was  Shakspeare  not 
understood,  he  soon  became  no  longer  known.  In  1707, 
a  poet  named  Tate  produced  a  work  entitled  "  King  Lear," 
the  subject  of  which,  he  said,  he  had  borrowed  from  an 
obscure  piece  of  the  same  name,  recommended  to  his  no- 
tice by  a  friend.  This  obscure  piece  was  Shakspeare's 
"  King  Leai  " 

Distinguished  writers,  however,  had  not  altogether  ceas- 
ed to  allow  Shakspeare  a  share  in  the  literary  glory  of  their 
country ;  but  it  was  timidly  and  by  degrees  that  they  shook 
off  the  yoke  of  the  prejudices  of  their  time.  If,  in  concert 
with  Davenant,  Dryden  had  recast  the  works  of  Shaks- 


122  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

peare,  Pope,  in  the  edition  which  he  published  in  1725, 
contented  himself  with  omitting  all  that  he  could  not  bring 
himself  to  regard  as  the  work  of  the  genius  to  whom  he 
paid  at  least  this  homage.  With  regard  to  that  which  he 
was  obliged  to  leave,  Shakspeare,  says  Pope,  "having  at 
his  first  appearance  no  other  aim  in  his  writings  than  to 
procure  a  subsistence,"  wrote  "  for  the  people,"  without 
seeking  to  obtain  "patronage  from  the  better  sort."  In 
1765,  Johnson,  waxing  bolder,  and  gaining  encouragement 
from  the  dawn  of  a  return  to  the  national  taste,  vigorously 
defended  the  romantic  liberties  of  Shakspeare  against  the 
pretensions  of  classical  authority ;  and  though  he  made 
some  concessions  to  the  contempt  of  a  more  polished  age 
for  the  vulgarity  and  ignorance  of  the  old  poet,  he  at  least 
had  the  courage  to  remark  that,  when  a  country  is  "  un- 
enlightened by  learning,  the  whole  people  is  the  vulgar." 

Shakspeare's  works,  then,  were  reprinted  and  commen- 
tated ;  but  the  mutilations  alone  obtained  the  honors  of 
the  stage.  The  Shakspeare  amended  by  Dryden,  Dave- 
nant,  and  others,  was  the  only  one  which  actors  ventured 
to  perform ;  and  the  "  Tattler,"  having  to  quote  some  lines 
from  "  Macbeth,"  copied  them  from  Davenant's  amended 
edition.  It  was  Garrick  who,  finding  nowhere  so  fully  as 
in  Shakspeare  means  to  supply  the  requirements  of  his 
own  talent,  delivered  him  from  this  disgraceful  protection, 
lent  to  his  ancient  glory  the  freshness  of  his  own  young 
renown,  and  restored  the  poet  to  possession  of  the  stage  as 
well  as  of  the  patriotic  admiration  of  the  English. 

Since  that  period,  national  pride  has  daily  extended  and 
redoubled  this  admiration.  It  nevertheless  remained  bar- 
ren of  results,  and  Shakspeare,  to  use  the  language  of  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  "reigned  a  Grecian  prince  over  Persian 
slaves,  and  they  who  adored  him  did  not  dare  attempt  to 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  123 

use  his  language."  A  new  impulse  can  not  be  entirely 
due  to  old  recollections ;  and  an  old  epooh,  that  it  may 
bear  new  fruit,  needs  to  be  again  fertilized  by  a  movement 
analogous  to  that  which  gave  it  its  first  fertility. 

This  movement  has  made  itself  felt  in  Europe,  and 
England  also  is  beginning  to  feel  its  impulse,  as  Sir  Wal- 
ter Scott's  novels  sufficiently  demonstrate.  But  England 
will  not  be  the  only  country  indebted  to  Shakspeare  for 
the  new  direction  which  is  manifesting  itself  in  her  drama, 
as  well  as  in  other  branches  of  her  literature.  In  the  lit- 
erary movement  by  which  it  is  now  agitated,  Continental 
Europe  turns  its  eyes  toward  Shakspeare.  Germany  has 
long  adopted  him  as  a  model  rather  than  as  a  guide  ;  and 
thereby  it  has,  perhaps,  suspended  in  their  course  those 
vivifying  juices  which  impart  their  vigor  and  freshness 
only  to  fruits  of  native  growth.  Nevertheless,  the  path  on 
which  Germany  has  entered  is  leading  to  the  discovery  of 
true  wealth;  and  if  she  will  but  work  her  own  mines,  a 
rich  and  fertile  vein  will  not  be  wanting.  The  literature 
of  Spain,  a  natural  fruit  of  her  civilization,  already  pos- 
sesses its  own  original  and  distinct  character.  Italy  alone 
and  France,  the  fatherlands  of  modern  classicism,  are  not 
yet  recovered  from  their  astonishment  at  the  first  shock 
given  to  those  opinions  which  they  have  established  with 
the  rigor  of  necessity,  and  maintained  with  the  pride  of 
faith.  Doubt  presents  itself  to  us  as  yet  only  as  an  ene- 
my whose  attacks  we  are  beginning  to  fear ;  it  seems  as 
though  discussion  bears  a  threatening  aspect,  and  that  ex- 
amination can  not  probe  without  undermining  and  over- 
turning. In  this  position  we  hesitate,  as  if  about  to  de- 
stroy that  which  will  never  be  replaced ;  we  are  afraid  of 
finding  ourselves  without  law,  and  of  discovering  nothing 
but  the  insufficiency  or  illegitimacy  of  those  principles 


124  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

upon  which  we  were  formerly  wont  to  rely  without  disqui- 
etude. 

This  disturbance  of  mind  can  not  cease  so  long  as  the 
question  remains  undecided  between  science  and  barbar- 
ism, the  beauties  of  order  and  the  effects  of  disorder ;  so 
long  as  men  persist  in  seeing,  in  that  system  of  which 
the  first  outlines  were  traced  by  Shakspeare,  nothing  but 
an  allowance  of  unrestrained  liberty  and  undefined  lati- 
tude to  the  flights  of  the  imagination,  as  well  as  to  the 
course  of  genius.  If  the  romantic  system  has  beauties,  it 
necessarily  has  its  art  and  rules.  Nothing  is  beautiful,  in 
the  eyes  of  man,  which  does  not  derive  its  effects  from 
certain  combinations,  the  secret  of  which  can  always  be 
supplied  by  our  judgment  when  our  emotions  have  attest- 
ed its  power.  The  knowledge  or  employment  of  these  com- 
binations constitutes  art.  Shakspeare  had  his  own  art. 
We  must  seek  it  out  in  his  works,  examine  into  the  means 
which  he  employs,  and  the  results  to  which  he  aspires. 
Then  only  shall  we  possess  a  true  knowledge  of  his  system; 
then  we  shall  know  how  far  it  is  capable  of  increased  de- 
velopment, according  to  the  nature  of  dramatic  art,  con- 
sidered in  its  application  to  modern  society. 

It  is,  in  fact,  nowhere  else — neither  in  past  times,  nor 
among  peoples  unacquainted  with  our  habits — but  among 
ourselves,  and  in  ourselves,  that  we  must  seek  the  condi- 
tions and  necessities  of  dramatic  poetry.  Differing  in  this 
respect  from  other  arts,  in  addition  to  the  absolute  rules 
imposed  upon  it,  as  on  all  others,  by  the  unchangeable  na- 
ture of  man,  dramatic  art  has  relative  rules  which  flow 
from  the  changeful  state  of  society.  In  imitating  the  an- 
tique style,  modern  statuaries  labor  under  no  other  con- 
straint but  the  difficulty  of  equaling  its  perfection;  and 
the  most  fervent  and  powerful  adorer  of  antiquity  would 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  125 

not  venture  to  reproduce,  even  upon  the  most  submissive 
stage,  all  that  he  admires  in  a  tragedy  of  Sophocles.  It 
is  easy  to  discern  the  cause  of  this.  "When  contemplating 
a  statue  or  a  picture,  the  spectator  receives  at  first,  from 
the  sculptor  or  the  painter,  the  first  impression  which  oc- 
curs to  him ;  but  it  rests  with  himself  to  continue  the 
work.  He  stops  and  looks ;  his  natural  disposition,  his 
recollections  and  thoughts,  group  themselves  around  the 
leading  idea  which  is  presented  to  his  view,  and  gradually 
develop  within  him  the  ever- increasing  emotion  which  will 
soon  hold  entire  dominion  over  him.  The  artist  has  done 
nothing  but  awaken  in  the  spectator  the  faculty  of  con- 
ceiving and  feeling  ;  it  takes  hold  of  the  movement  which 
has  been  communicated  to  it,  follows  it  up  in  its  own  di- 
rection, accelerates  it  by  its  own  strength,  and  thus  cre- 
ates for  itself  the  pleasure  which  it  enjoys.  Before  a  pic- 
ture of  a  martyrdom,  one  person  is  moved  by  the  expres- 
sion of  fervent  piety,  another  by  the  manifestation  of  re- 
signed grief ;  some  are  filled  with  indignation  at  the  cru- 
elty of  the  executioners.  A  tinge  of  courageous  satisfac- 
tion which  is  evident  in  the  look  of  the  victim,  reminds 
the  patriot  of  the  joys  of  devotion  to  a  sacred  cause  ;  and 
the  soul  of  the  philosopher  is  elevated  by  the  contempla- 
tion of  man  sacrificing  himself  for  truth.  The  diversity 
of  these  impressions  is  of  little  consequence ;  they  are  all 
equally  natural  and  equally  free  ;  each  spectator  chooses, 
as  it  were,  the  feeling  which  suits  him  best,  and  when  it 
has  once  entered  into  his  soul,  no  external  fact  can  disturb 
its  supremacy,  no  movement  can  interrupt  the  course  of 
that  to  which  every  man  yields  himself  according  to  his 
inclination. 

In  the  prolonged  course  of  dramatic  action,  on  the  con- 
trary, all  becomes  changed  at  every  step,  and  each  mo- 


126  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

ment  produces  a  new  impression.  The  painter  is  satisfied 
with  establishing  one  first  and  unvarying  connection  be- 
tween his  picture  and  the  spectator.  The  dramatic  poet 
,  must  incessantly  renew  this  relation,  and  maintain  it 
through  all  the  vicissitudes  of  the  most  various  positions. 
All  the  acts  in  which  human  existence  is  manifested,  all 
the  forms  which  it  assumes,  and  all  the  feelings  which 
may  modify  it  during  the  continuance  of  an  always  com- 
plicated event — these  are  the  numerous  and  changeful  ob- 
jects which  he  presents  to  the  public  view ;  and  he  is 
never  allowed  to  separate  himself  from  his  spectators,  or 
to  leave  them  for  an  instant  alone  and  at  liberty  ;  he  must 
be  incessantly  acting  upon  them,  and  must  at  every  step 
excite  in  their  souls  emotions  analogous  to  the  ever-chang- 
ing position  in  which  he  has  placed  them.  How  can  he 
succeed  in  this,  unless  he  carefully  adapts  himself  to  their 
dispositions  and  inclinations  ;  unless  he  supplies  the  act- 
ual requirements  of  their  mind  ;  unless  he  addresses  him- 
self constantly  to  ideas  which  are  familiar  to  them,  and 
speaks  to  them  in  the  language  which  they  are  accus- 
tomed to  hear  ?  Passion  will  not  appear  to  us  so  touch- 
ing if  it  be  displayed  in  a  manner  contrary  to  our  habits ; 
and  sympathy  will  not  be  awakened  with  the  same  vi- 
vacity in  regard  to  interests  of  which  we  have  ceased  to 
be  personally  conscious.  The  necessity  for  appeasing  the 
gods  by  a  human  sacrifice  does  not,  in  our  mind,  give  that 
force  to  the  speeches  of  Menelaus  which  it  would  have 
imparted  to  them  among  the  Greeks,  who  were  attached 
to  their  faith :  the  stern  chastity  of  Hippolytus  does  not 
interest  us  in  his  fate  :  and  virtue  itself,  in  order  to  ob- 
tain from  us  that  affectionate  reverence  which  it  has  a 
right  to  expect,  needs  to  connect  itself  with  duties  which 
our  habits  have  taught  us  to  respect  and  cherish. 


SHAKSPEARE   AND  HIS  TIMES.  127 

Subject,  therefore,  at  once  to  the  conditions  of  the  arts 
of  imitation  and  to  those  of  the  purely  poetical  arts; 
bound,  like  epic  poetry  in  its  narratives,  to  set  human  life 
in  motion ;  and  called  upon,  like  painting  and  sculpture, 
to  present  in  its  person  and  under  its  individual  features 
— the  dramatic  poet  is  obliged  to  include,  within  the  prob- 
abilities of  one  action,  all  the  means  which  he  requires  to 
make  it  understood.  His  characters  can  only  tell  us  what 
they  would  say  if  they  were  actually  there,  really  occu- 
pied with  the  fact  which  they  represent.  The  epic  poet, 
as  it  were,  does  the  honors,  to  his  readers,  of  the  edifice 
into  which  he  introduces  them ;  he  accompanies  them 
with  his  own  speeches,  assists  them  by  his  explanations, 
and,  by  the  description  of  manners,  times,  and  places, 
prepares  them  for  the  scene  which  he  is  about  to  disclose 
to  their  view,  and  opens  to  them  in  every  sense  the  world 
into  which  he  is  desirous  to  transport  them,  and  himself 
also.  The  dramatic  personage  comes  forward  alone,  con- 
cerned with  himself  only  ;  he  places  himself,  without  pre- 
liminary explanation,  in  communication  with  the  specta- 
tor ;  and  without  calling  or  guiding  them,  he  must  make 
his  audience  follow  him.  Thus  separated  from  one  an- 
other, how  can  they  succeed  in  coming  into  connection, 
unless  a  profound  and  general  analogy  already  exists  be- 
tween them  ?  Evidently  those  heroes,  who  do  nothing 
for  the  public  but  speak  and  feel  in  their  presence,  will  be 
understood  and  received  by  them  only  so  far  as  they  coin- 
cide  with  them  in  their  mode  of  conceiving,  feeling,  and 
speaking ;  and  dramatic  effect  can  result  only  from  their 
aptitude  to  unite  in  the  same  impressions. 

The  impressions  of  man  communicated  to  man — this  is, 
in  fact,  the  sole  source  of  dramatic  effects.  Man  alone  is 
the  subject  of  the  drama  ;  man  alone  is  its  theatre.     His 


28  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

soul  is  the  stage  upon  which  the  events  of  this  world  come 
to  play  their  part ;  it  is  not  by  their  own  virtue,  but  mere- 
ly by  their  relations  to  the  moral  being  whose  destiny  oc- 
cupies our  attention,  that  events  take  part  in  the  action ; 
every  dramatic  character  abandons  them  as  soon  as  they 
aspire  to  exercise  a  direct  influence  over  us,  instead  of 
acting  by  the  intermediary  of  a  visible  person,  and  by 
means  of  the  emotion  which  we  receive,  in  our  turn,  from 
the  emotion  which  they  have  excited  in  him.  Why  is 
the  narrative  of  Theramenes  epic,  and  not  dramatic  ?  Be- 
cause he  addresses  himself  to  the  spectator,  and  not  to 
Theseus.  Theseus,  being  already  aware  of  his  son's 
death,  is  no  longer  capable  of  experiencing  the  impressions 
occasioned  by  the  narrative ;  and  if,  while  still  in  uncer- 
tainty, he  were  only  to  arrive  at  a  knowledge  of  his  mis- 
fortune through  the  anguish  of  such  a  recital,  the  poetical 
ornaments  with  which  it  is,  perhaps,  overloaded  would  not 
prevent  it  from  being  dramatic,  for  the  impressions  which 
it  produces  would  be  to  us  those  of  a  person  interested  in 
the  result :  we  should  be  conscious  of  them  in  the  heart 
of  Theseus. 

In  the  heart  of  man  alone  can  the  dramatic  fact  take 
place  ;  the  event  which  is  its  occasion  does  not  constitute 
it.  The  death  of  the  lover  is  rendered  dramatic  by  the 
grief  of  his  mistress — the  danger  of  the  son  by  the  terror 
of  his  mother  ;  and  however  horrible  may  be  the  idea  of 
the  murder  of  a  child,  Andromache  inspires  us  with  great- 
er solicitude  than  Astyanax.  An  earthquake  and  the 
physical  convulsions  which  accompany  it  will  furnish 
only  a  spectacle  for  contemplation,  or  the  subject  of  an 
epic  narrative ;  but  the  rain  is  dramatic  upon  the  bald 
head  of  old  Lear,  and  especially  in  the  heart  of  his  com- 
panions, racked  by  the  pity  which  they  feel  for  him.     The 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  129 

apparition  of  a  spectre  would  have  no  effect  upon  the  au- 
dience unless  some  one  on  the  stage  were  alarmed  by  it ; 
and  to  produce  the  dramatic  effect  of  Lady  Macbeth's 
somnambulism,  Shakspeare  has  taken  care  that  it  should 
he  witnessed  by  a  physician  and  a  waiting-woman,  whom 
he  has  employed  to  transmit  to  us  the  terrible  impressions 
which  it  produces  upon  themselves. 

Thus  man  alone  occupies  the  stage  ;  his  existence  is 
displayed  upon  it,  animated  and  aggrandized  by  the 
events  which  are  connected  with  it,  and  which  owe  their 
theatrical  character  to  this  connection  alone.  In  comedy, 
events,  being  of  less  magnitude  than  the  passion  which 
they  excite  in  man,  derive  a  laughable  importance  from 
this  passion ;  in  tragedy,  being  more  powerful  than  the 
means  which  man  has  at  his  disposal,  they  move  us  by 
the  exhibition  of  his  grandeur  and  his  weakness.  The 
comic  poet  invents  them  freely,  for  his  art  consists  in 
originating,  in  man  himself  and  his  absurdities,  those 
events  by  which  man  is  agitated.  This  invention  is  rare- 
ly a  merit  in  the  tragic  poet,  for  his  work  is  to  discern 
and  exhibit  man  and  his  soul  in  the  midst  of  the  events 
to  which  he  is  subjected.  If  it  be  generally  requisite  that 
the  subject  of  tragedy  should  be  taken  from  the  history 
of  the  great  and  powerful,  it  is  because  the  strong  im- 
pressions which  it  aims  at  producing  upon  us  can  only  be 
communicated  to  us  by  strong  characters,  incapable  of 
succumbing  beneath  the  blows  of  an  ordinary  destiny.  It 
i  3  in  the  development  of  high  fortune  and  its  terrible  vicis- 
situdes that  the  whole  man  appears,  with  all  the  wealth 
and  energy  of  his  nature.  Thus  the  spectacle  of  the 
world,  concentrated  in  an  individual,  is  revealed  to  us 
upon  the  stage ;  thus,  by  the  medium  of  the  soul  which 

I 


130  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

receives  their  impress,  events  reach  us  through  sympathy, 
the  source  of  dramatic  illusion. 

If  material  illusion  were  the  aim  of  the  arts,  the  wax- 
figures  of  Curtius  would  surpass  all  the  statues  of  an- 
tiquity, and  a  panorama  would  be  the  ultimate  effort  of 
painting.  If  their  object  were  to  impose  upon  the  reason, 
and  to  impart  to  the  imagination  a  shock  sufficiently  pow- 
erful to  pervert  the  judgment  to  such  a  degree  that  a  the- 
atrical representation  could  be  taken  for  the  accomp.ish- 
ment  of  a  real  and  actual  fact,  a  very  few  scenes  would 
suffice  to  work  up  the  spectators  to  such  a  pitch  of  excite- 
ment that  its  effect  would  soon  be  to  interrupt  the  per- 
formance by  the  violence  of  their  emotions.  If  even  it 
were  desired  that,  in  presence  of  objects  imitated  by  art 
of  any  kind,  the  soul,  affected  at  least  by  the  reality  of 
the  impressions  which  it  receives  from  them,  should  really 
experience  those  feelings  of  which  the  image  is  produced 
in  it  by  a  fictitious  representation,  the  labor  of  genius 
would  have  succeeded  only  in  multiplying,  in  this  world, 
the  pains  of  life  and  the  exhibition  of  human  miseries. 
These  feelings,  however,  occupy  and  pervade  us,  and  on 
their  existence  depends  the  effect  which  the  poet  aims  to 
produce  upon  us.  We  must  believe  in  them  in  order  to 
yield  to  them ;  and  we  could  not  believe  in  them  unless 
we  assigned  to  them  a  cause  worthy  to  awaken  them. 
"When  our  tears  flow  before  Raphael's  picture  of  Christ 
bearing  his  cross,  before  we  can  allow  them  to  flow,  we 
must  believe  that  we  bestow  them  upon  that  sorrowful 
compassion  which  we  should  feel  at  really  beholding  such 
dreadful  sufferings.  If,  in  the  emotions  with  which  wo 
are  inspired  by  the  sight  of  Tancred  dying  on  the  stage, 
we  did  not  think  we  could  recognize  the  emotions  which 
we  should  feel  for  Tancred  dying  in  reality,  we  should  bo 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  13 

displeased  with  ourselves  for  indulging  in  a  pity  which  was 
not  rendered  legitimate  by  its  application  to  sorrows  that 
at  least  were  possible.  And  yet  we  deceive  ourselves ; 
that  which  we  then  discern  in  our  breasts  is  not  that 
power  which  is  awakened  at  the  aspect  of  the  suffering 
of  our  fellows — a  power  full  of  bitterness  if  reduced  to 
inactivity,  but  full  of  activity  if  it  be  allowed  liberty  and 
hope  to  render  assistance.  It  is  not  this  power,  but  its 
shadow — the  image  of  our  features  repeated  with  striking 
accuracy,  but  without  life,  in  a  mirror.  Moved  at  the  as- 
pect of  what  we  should  be  capable  of  experiencing,  we 
give  up  our  imagination  to  it  without  having  any  demands 
to  make  upon  our  will.  No  one  is  tormented  with  an  ir- 
repressible desire  to  shout  out  to  Tancred,  Orosmane,  or 
Othello,  that  they  are  laboring  under  a  mistake ;  no  one 
suffers  through  not  being  able  to  rush  to  the  assistance  of 
Gloster  against  the  execrable  Duke  of  Cornwall.  The  un- 
endurable painfulness  of  the  position  of  the  spectators  of 
such  a  scene  is  removed  by  the  idea  that  it  is  utterly  unreal ; 
an  idea  which  is  presented  to  our  minds,  and  which  we 
retain  without  clearly  perceiving  its  presence,  because  we 
are  absorbed  by  the  contemplation  of  the  more  vivid  im- 
pressions which  crowd  upon  our  brain.  If  this  idea  were 
clearly  present  to  our  thoughts,  it  would  dissipate  the 
whole  cortege  of  illusions  which  surround  us,  and  we 
should  summon  it  to  our  assistance  to  deaden  their  effect, 
if  they  should  change  into  a  subject  for  real  grief.  Bat 
so  long  as  the  spectator  takes  delight  in  forgetting  it,  art 
should  studiously  avoid  every  thing  that  might  remind 
him  that  the  spectacle  which  he  contemplates  is  not  real. 
Hence  arises  the  necessity  of  bringing  all  the  parts  of  the 
performance  into  harmonious  unison,  and  of  not  diffusing 
unequally  the  force  of  the  illusion,  which  loses  strength 


130  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

receives  their  impress,  events  reach  us  through  sympathy, 
the  source  of  dramatic  illusion. 

If  material  illusion  were  the  aim  of  the  arts,  the  wax- 
figures  of  Curtius  would  surpass  all  the  statues  of  an- 
tiquity, and  a  panorama  would  be  the  ultimate  effort  of 
painting.  If  their  object  were  to  impose  upon  the  reason, 
and  to  impart  to  the  imagination  a  shock  sufficiently  pow- 
erful to  pervert  the  judgment  to  such  a  degree  that  a  the- 
atrical representation  could  be  taken  for  the  accomp.ish- 
ment  of  a  real  and  actual  fact,  a  very  few  scenes  would 
suffice  to  work  up  the  spectators  to  such  a  pitch  of  excite- 
ment that  its  effect  would  soon  be  to  interrupt  the  per- 
formance by  the  violence  of  their  emotions.  If  even  it 
were  desired  that,  in  presence  of  objects  imitated  by  art 
of  any  kind,  the  soul,  affected  at  least  by  the  reality  of 
the  impressions  which  it  receives  from  them,  should  really 
experience  those  feelings  of  which  the  image  is  produced 
in  it  by  a  fictitious  representation,  the  labor  of  genius 
would  have  succeeded  only  in  multiplying,  in  this  world, 
the  pains  of  life  and  the  exhibition  of  human  miseries. 
These  feelings,  however,  occupy  and  pervade  us,  and  on 
their  existence  depends  the  effect  which  the  poet  aims  to 
produce  upon  us.  We  must  believe  in  them  in  order  to 
yield  to  them ;  and  we  could  not  believe  in  them  unless 
we  assigned  to  them  a  cause  worthy  to  awaken  them. 
"When  our  tears  flow  before  Raphael's  picture  of  Christ 
bearing  his  cross,  before  we  can  allow  them  to  flow,  we 
must  believe  that  we  bestow  them  upon  that  sorrowful 
compassion  which  we  should  feel  at  really  beholding  such 
dreadful  sufferings.  If,  in  the  emotions  with  which  wo 
are  inspired  by  the  sight  of  Tancred  dying  on  the  stage, 
we  did  not  think  wc  could  recognize  the  emotions  which 
we  should  feel  for  Tancrod  dying  in  reality,  wc  should  be 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  13 

displeased  with  ourselves  for  indulging  in  a  pity  which  was 
not  rendered  legitimate  by  its  application  to  sorrows  that 
at  least  were  possible.  And  yet  we  deceive  ourselves ; 
that  which  we  then  discern  in  our  breasts  is  not  that 
power  which  is  awakened  at  the  aspect  of  the  suffering 
of  our  fellows — a  power  full  of  bitterness  if  reduced  to 
inactivity,  but  full  of  activity  if  it  be  allowed  liberty  and 
hope  to  render  assistance.  It  is  not  this  power,  but  its 
shadow — the  image  of  our  features  repeated  with  striking 
accuracy,  but  without  life,  in  a  mirror.  Moved  at  the  as- 
pect of  what  we  should  be  capable  of  experiencing,  we 
give  up  our  imagination  to  it  without  having  any  demands 
to  make  upon  our  will.  No  one  is  tormented  with  an  ir- 
repressible desire  to  shout  out  to  Tancred,  Orosmane,  or 
Othello,  that  they  are  laboring  under  a  mistake ;  no  one 
suffers  through  not  being  able  to  rush  to  the  assistance  of 
Gloster  against  the  execrable  Duke  of  Cornwall.  The  un- 
endurable painfulness  of  the  position  of  the  spectators  of 
such  a  scene  is  removed  by  the  idea  that  it  is  utterly  unreal ; 
an  idea  which  is  presented  to  our  minds,  and  which  we 
retain  without  clearly  perceiving  its  presence,  because  we 
are  absorbed  by  the  contemplation  of  the  more  vivid  im- 
pressions which  crowd  upon  our  brain.  If  this  idea  were 
clearly  present  to  our  thoughts,  it  would  dissipate  the 
whole  cortege  of  illusions  which  surround  us,  and  we 
should  summon  it  to  our  assistance  to  deaden  their  effect, 
if  they  should  change  into  a  subject  for  real  grief.  But 
so  long  as  the  spectator  takes  delight  in  forgetting  it,  art 
should  studiously  avoid  every  thing  that  might  remind 
him  that  the  spectacle  which  he  contemplates  is  not  real. 
Hence  arises  the  necessity  of  bringing  all  the  parts  of  the 
performance  into  harmonious  unison,  and  of  not  diffusing 
nnequaily  the  force  of  the  illusion,  which  loses  strength 


134  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

his  plays  a  simple  accessory  which  the  taste  of  his  age  did 
not  allow  him  to  omit,  and  which,  perhaps,  his  own  taste 
did  not  require  him  to  sacrifice,  but  which  he  reduced  to 
its  true  value.  It  matters  little,  therefore,  that,  in  his 
dramas,  the  moral  illusion  may  still  be  sometimes  disturb- 
ed by  the  imperfect  representation  of  objects  which  the- 
atrical imitation  could  not  compass ;  Shakspeare  did  not 
the  less  discern  the  true  source  of  this  illusion,  and  did  not 
seek  the  means  of  producing  it  elsewhere. 

He  was  equally  well  acquainted  with  its  nature  also ; 
he  felt  that  an  illusion  of  this  kind,  akin  to  no  error  of  the 
senses  or  the  reason,  but  the  simple  result  of  a  disposition 
of  the  soul,  which  forgets  all  extraneous  things  in  order  to 
contemplate  itself,  could  only  be  sustained  by  the  perpet- 
ual consent  of  the  spectator  to  the  seduction  which  the 
poet  is  desirous  to  exercise  over  him,  and  that  this  seduc- 
tive influence  must  therefore  be  maintained  unintermit- 
tingly.  Whatever  might  be  the  power  of  a  dramatic  rep- 
resentation, it  could  not,  from  the  outset,  obtain  a  suffi- 
cient hold  upon  us  to  deliver  us  over  in  a  defenseless  state 
to  all  the  feelings  which  will  take  possession  of  us  in  pro- 
portion as  we  advance  in  the  position  in  which  it  has 
placed  us.  The  imagination  must  lend  itself  gradually  to 
this  new  position,  and  the  soul  must  accustom  itself  to  it, 
and  accept  the  sway  of  the  impressions  which  must  arise 
from  it,  just  as,  when  we  experience  an  unexpected  piece 
of  good  or  bad  fortune,  we  require  some  time  to  bring  our 
feelings  to  a  level  with  our  fate.  But  if,  after  having  ob- 
tained our  consent  to  this  position,  and  after  having  moved 
us  by  the  impressions  which  accompany  it,  the  poet  im 
prudently  attempts  to  make  us  pass  into  a  new  position, 
attended  by  new  impressions,  the  work  must  be  begun 
over  again,  and  will  require   all  the  more  effort,  because  it 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  135 

will  be  necessary  to  efface  the  traces  of  a  work  already  ac- 
complished. Then  the  imagination  becomes  chilled  and 
disturbed  ;  the  spectator  refuses  to  lend  himself  to  a  move- 
ment from  which  he  is  diverted  after  having  been  desired 
to  yield  himself  unresistingly  to  its  influence.  The  illu- 
sion vanishes,  and  with  it  the  interest  also ;  for  dramatic 
interest,  in  common  with  dramatic  illusion,  can  only  be 
attached  to  impressions  which  are  continued  and  renewed 
in  one  and  the  same  direction. 

Unity  of  impression,  that  prime  secret  of  dramatic  art, 
was  the  soul  of  Shakspeare's  great  conceptions,  and  the 
instinctive  object  of  his  assiduous  labor,  just  as  it  is  the 
end  of  all  the  rules  invented  by  all  systems.  The  exclu- 
sive partisans  of  the  classic  system  believed  that  it  was 
impossible  to  attain  unity  of  impression,  except  by  means 
of  what  are  called  the  three  unities.  Shakspeare  attain- 
ed it  by  other  means.  If  the  legitimacy  of  these  means 
were  recognized,  it  would  greatly  diminish  the  importance 
hitherto  attributed  to  certain  forms  and  rules,  which  are 
evidently  invested  with  an  abusive  authority,  if  art,  in  or- 
der to  accomplish  its  designs,  does  not  need  the  restric- 
tions which  they  impose  upon  it,  and  which  often  deprive 
it  of  a  portion  of  its  wealth. 

The  mobility  of  our  imagination,  the  variety  of  our  in- 
terests, and  the  inconstancy  of  our  inclinations,  have  given 
to  times,  and  even  to  places,  a  power  which  should  not  be 
lost  sight  of  by  the  poet  who  is  desirous  to  make  use  of 
the  affections  of  man  in  order  to  excite  the  sympathy  of 
his  fellows,  If  he  presents  his  hero  to  them  at  intervals 
too  widely  distant  in  the  duration  of  his  existence,  they 
will  inquire,  "  What  has  become  of  the  man  whom  we 
knew  six  months  ago  ?"  just  as  naturally  as,  when  meet- 
ing a  friend  six  months  after  the  occurrence  of  an  event 


136  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

which  has  plunged  him  into  grief,  we  hegin  by  inquiring 
discreetly  into  the  state  of  that  grief  which  we  once  saw 
so  painfully  manifested,  for  fear  lest  we  should  enter  into 
communication  with  his  soul  before  we  know  what  feel- 
ing we  shall  have  to  participate.  If  compelled  to  give  an 
nccount  of  the  changes  which  have  occurred  during  the 
course  of  six  months  or  a  year,  to  spectators  who,  only  a 
short  time  previously,  saw  him  disappear  from  the  stage, 
would  not  the  tragic  hero  present  a  strange  incongruity 
with  himself?  would  not  the  thread  of  his  identity  be 
broken  ?  and,  far  from  feeling  the  same  interest  in  him, 
should  we  not  have  some  difficulty  in  avowing  him  to  be 
the  same  person  ? 

From  this  condition  of  human  nature  has  been  derived 
the  true  motive  of  the  unities  of  time  and  place,  which 
have  often  been  most  preposterously  founded  upon  a  pre- 
tended necessity  of  satisfying  the  reason  by  accommoda- 
ting the  duration  of  the  real  action  to  that  of  the  theatrical 
representation  ;  as  if  the  reason  could  consent  to  believe 
that,  during  the  interval  of  a  few  minutes  between  the 
acts,  the  persons  of  the  drama  had  passed  from  evening  to 
morning  without  having  slept,  or  from  morning  to  evening 
without  having  eaten  ;  and  as  if  it  were  more  easy  to  take 
three  hours  for  a  day  than  for  a  week,  or  even  for  a  month ! 

Nevertheless,  it  can  not  be  denied  that  the  mind  feels  a 
certain  repugnance  to  behold  intervals  of  time  and  place 
disappear  before  it,  without  its  being  able  to  account  for 
i heir  departure,  or  receiving  any  modification  from  it. 
The  more  these  intervals  are  prolonged,  the  more  does  this 
discontent  increase,  for  the  mind  feels  that  many  things 
arc  thus  concealed  from  its  knowledge  of  which  it  is  its 
province  to  dispose,  and  it  would  not  like  to  be  told  too 
often,  as  Crispin  says  to  Geronte,  "  Ccst  voire  lethargic." 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  131 

But  these  difficulties  are  not  insurmountable  by  the  skill 
of  art ;  if  the  mind  becomes  easily  alarmed  at  that  which, 
without  its  consent,  disturbs  the  settled  habits  of  its  char- 
acter, it  is  easy  to  make  it  forget  them.  Place  it  in  view 
of  the  object  toward  which  you  have  succeeded  in  direct- 
ing its  desires,  and,  in  its  forward  spring  to  reach  it,  it  will 
no  longer  care  to  measure  the  space  which  you  compel  it 
to  traverse.  "When  reading  an  interesting  work,  our  strong- 
ly-excited attention  transports  us  without  difficulty  from 
one  time  to  another  ;  our  thought  concentrates  itself  upon 
the  event  at  which  we  expect  to  arrive,  and  sees  nothing 
in  the  interval  which  separates  us  from  it ;  and  as  it  en- 
ables us  to  reach  it,  without  having,  as  it  were,  changed 
our  place,  we  are  scarcely  conscious  that  we  have  been 
obliged  to  change  the  time.  "When  Claudius  and  Laertes 
have  agreed  together  upon  the  duel  in  which  Hamlet  is  to 
be  slain,  between  that  moment  and  the  consummation  of 
their  plans  we  care  little  to  know  whether  two  hours  or  a 
week  have  elapsed. 

This  arises  from  the  fact  that  the  chain  of  the  impres- 
sions has  not  been  broken,  and  the  position  of  the  charac- 
ters has  not  been  changed ;  their  places  have  continued 
the  same ;  their  ardor  is  not  less  energetic ;  time  has  not 
acted  upon  them  ;  it  counts  for  nothing  in  the  feelings 
with  which  they  inspire  us  ;  it  finds  them,  and  us  with 
them,  in  the  same  disposition  of  soul ;  and  thus  the  two 
periods  are  brought  together  by  that  unity  of  impression 
which  makes  us  say,  when  thinking  of  an  event  which  oc- 
curred long  ago,  but  the  traces  of  which  are  still  fresh  in 
our  memory,  "  It  seems  as  though  it  had  happened  only 
yesterday." 

In  fact,  what  care  we  about  the  time  which  elapses  be- 
tween  the  actions  with  which  Macbeth  fills  up  his  carpei 


138  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

of  crime  ?  When  he  commands  the  murder  of  Banquc 
the  assassination  of  Duncan  is  still  present  to  our  eyes,  and 
seems  as  though  it  had  been  committed  only  yesterday ; 
and  when  Macbeth  determines  upon  the  massacre  of  Mac- 
duff's family,  we  fancy  we  see  him  still  pale  from  the  ap- 
parition of  Banquo's  ghost.  None  of  his  actions  has  term- 
inated without  necessitating  the  action  which  follows  it ; 
they  announce  and  involve  each  other,  thus  forcing  the 
imagination  to  go  forward,  full  of  trouble  and  sad  expec- 
tation. Macbeth,  who,  after  having  killed  Duncan,  is 
urged,  by  the  very  terror  which  he  feels  at  his  crime,  to 
kill  the  chamberlains,  to  whom  he  intends  to  attribute  the 
murder,  does  not  permit  us  to  doubt  the  facility  with  which 
he  will  commit  new  crimes  whenever  occasion  requires. 
The  witches,  who,  at  the  opening  of  the  play,  have  taken 
possession  of  his  destiny,  do  not  allow  us  to  hope  that  they 
will  grant  any  respite  to  the  ambition  and  the  necessities 
of  his  crimes.  Thus  all  the  threads  are  laid  open  to  our 
eyes  from  the  beginning ;  we  follow,  we  anticipate  the 
course  of  events  ;  we  stint  no  haste  to  arrive  at  that  which 
our  imagination  devours  beforehand ;  intervals  vanish  with 
the  succession  of  the  ideas  which  should  occupy  them ; 
one  succession  alone  is  distinctly  marked  in  our  mind,  and 
that  is,  the  succession  of  the  events  which  compose  the  ab- 
sorbing spectacle  which  sweeps  us  onward  in  its  rapidity. 
In  our  view,  they  are  as  closely  connected  in  time  as  they 
are  intimately  linked  together  in  thought ;  and  any  dura- 
tion that  may  separate  them  is  a  duration  as  empty  and 
unperceived  as  that  of  sleep — as  all  those  epochs  in  which 
the  soul  is  manifested  by  no  sensible  symptom  of  its  exist- 
ence. What,  in  our  mind,  is  the  connection  of  the  hours 
in  comparison  with  this  train  of  ideas  ?  and  what  poet, 
subjecting  himself  to  unity  of  time,  would  deem  it  suffi- 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  130 

eient  to  establish,  between  the  different  parts  of  his  work, 
that  powerful  bond  of  union  which  can  result  only  from 
unity  of  impression  ?  So  true  is  it  that  this  alone  is  the 
object,  whereas  the  others  are  only  the  means. 

These  means  may,  undoubtedly,  sometimes  have  their 
efficiency  ;  the  rapidity  of  a  great  action  executed,  or  a 
great  event  accomplished,  within  the  space  of  a  few  hours, 
fills  the  imagination,  and  animates  the  soul  with  a  move- 
ment to  which  it  yields  with  ardor.  But  few  actions  re- 
ally permit  so  sudden  an  action  ;  few  events  are  composed 
of  parts  so  exactly  connected  in  time  and  space ;  and,  with- 
out alluding  to  the  improbabilities  which  are  consequent 
upon  their  forced  cohesion,  the  surprises  which  result  from 
it  very  often  disturb  the  unity  of  impression,  which  is  the 
rigorous  condition  of  dramatic  illusion.  Zaire,  passing 
suddenly  from  her  devoted  love  for  Orosmane  to  entire 
submission  to  the  faith  and  will  of  Lusignan,  has  some 
difficulty  in  restoring  to  us,  in  her  new  position,  as  much 
illusion  as  she  has  made  us  lose  by  so  abrupt  a  change. 
Voltaire  sought  his  effects  in  the  contrast  of  perfectly  hap- 
py love  with  love  in  despair  ;  a  powerful  means,  it  is  true, 
but  less  powerful,  perhaps,  than  the  preoccupation  of  a 
constant  and  unchanging  position,  which  develops  itself 
only  to  redouble  the  feeling  which  it  has  at  first  inspired. 
When  we  have  thoroughly  established  ourselves  in  an  af- 
fection, it  is  far  from  prudent  to  attempt  to  move  us  in 
favor  of  an  opposite  affection.  Corneille  has  not  shown 
us  Rodrigue  and  Chimene  together  before  the  quarrel  be- 
tween their  fathers  ;  he  felt  so  little  desire  to  impress  us 
with  the  idea  of  their  happiness,  that  Chimene,  when  told 
of  it,  can  not  believe  it,  and  disturbs  by  her  presentiments 
the  too  delightful  position  of  which  the  poet  is  exceedingly 
careful  not  to  put  us  in  possession,  lest  we  should  after- 


140  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

ward  find  it  too  difficult  to  sacrifice  it  to  that  duty  which 
will  soon  command  us  to  leave  it.  In  the  same  manner 
we  have  become  associated  with  the  feelings  of  Polyeucte, 
and  have  trembled  for  him  before  becoming  aware  of  the 
love  of  Pauline  for  Severe ;  if  our  first  interest  had  been 
attached  to  this  love,  perhaps  it  would  have  been  difficult 
for  us  afterward  to  feel  much  for  Polyeucte,  whose  pros* 
ence  would  be  importunate.  Thus,  when  Zaire  has  awak- 
ened our  emotion  as  a  lover,  we  are  inclined  to  think  that 
she  abandons  the  position  in  which  she  has  placed  us  rather 
too  easily,  in  order  to  fulfill  her  duty  as  a  daughter  and  a 
Christian.  The  philosophical  indifference  which  Voltaire 
has  imparted  to  her  in  the  first  scene,  in  order  to  facilitate 
her  subsequent  conversion,  renders  still  more  improbable 
the  devotedness  with  which  she  so  quickly  enters  upon  a 
duty  so  recently  discovered.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  at  the 
outset,  Voltaire  had  described  her  to  us  as  troubled  with 
scruples,  and  disquieted  with  regard  to  her  happiness,  fear 
would  have  prepared  us  beforehand  to  comprehend  in  ail 
its  extent,  at  its  first  appearance,  the  misfortune  which 
threatens  her,  and  to  see  her  yield  to  it  with  that  aban. 
donment  which  is  improbable  because  it  is  too  sudden. 

The  employment  of  sudden  changes  of  fortune,  by  which 
it  is  attempted  to  disguise,  beneath  a  great  alteration  in 
circumstances,  the  too  sudden  transitions  which  the  rule 
of  unity  in  point  of  time  may  impose,  frequently  renders 
the  inconveniences  of  this  rule  more  striking,  by  depriving 
it  of  the  means  of  making  preparation  for  the  different  im- 
pressions which  it  accumulates  within  too  limited  a  space. 
It  is,  on  the  contrary,  by  a  single  impression  that  Shaks- 
peare,  at  least  in  his  finest  compositions,  takes  possession 
at  the  very  outset,  of  our  thought,  and,  by  means  of  oui 
thought,  of  space  also.     Beyond  the  magic  cirole  which 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  141 

he  has  traced,  he  leaves  nothing  sufficiently  powerful  U. 
interfere  with  the  effect  of  the  only  unity  of  which  he  has 
need.  Change  of  fortune  may  exist  in  reference  to  the 
persons  of  the  drama,  hut  never  to  the  spectator.  Before 
we  are  informed  of  Othello's  happiness,  we  know  that  Iago 
is  preparing  to  destroy  it ;  the  Ghost  which  is  to  devote 
the  life  of  Hamlet  to  the  punishment  of  a  crime,  appears 
on  the  stage  before  he  does  ;  and  before  we  have  seen  Mac- 
beth virtuous,  the  utterance  of  his  name  by  the  Witches 
tells  us  that  he  is  destined  to  become  guilty.  In  the  same 
manner,  in  "  Athalie,"  the  whole  idea  of  the  drama  is  dis- 
played, in  the  first  scene,  in  the  character  and  promises  of 
the  high-priest ;  the  impression  is  begun,  and  it  will  con- 
tinue and  increase  always  in  the  same  direction.  Thus, 
who  could  say  that  an  interval  of  eight  days,  interposed, 
if  necessary,  between  the  promises  of  Joad  and  their  per- 
formance, would  have  broken  the  unity  of  impression  which 
lesults  from  the  invariable  constancy  of  his  plans  ? 

To  constancy  of  character,  feelings,  and  resolutions  ex- 
clusively belongs  that  moral  unity  which,  braving  time 
and  distance,  includes  all  the  parts  of  an  event  in  a  com- 
pact action,  in  which  the  gaps  of  material  unity  are  no 
longer  perceptible.  A  violently  excited  passion  could  not 
aim  at  such  an  effect ;  it  has  its  momentary  storms,  the 
course  of  which,  being  subject  to  external  and  variable 
causes,  must  in  a  short  time  reach  its  term.  As  soon  as 
jealousy  has  seized  upon  the  heart  of  Otheilo,  if  any  in- 
terval separated  that  moment  from  the  time  which  wit- 
nesses the  death  of  Desdemona,  the  unity  would  be  broken ; 
nothing  would  attest  to  us  the  link  which  must  unite  the 
first  transports  of  the  Moor  to  his  final  resolution  ;  the  ac- 
tion must  therefore  hasten  rapidly  forward,  and  must 
hurry  him  onward  to  his  destruction,  which  a  day's  re* 


i42  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

flection  would  perhaps  prevent  him  from  consummating. 
In  the  same  manner,  the  simple  description  of  events,  un- 
less the  presence  of  a  great  individual  character  should, 
by  dominating  over  them,  impress  upon  them  its  own 
unity,  will  make  us  feel  the  want  of  the  material  unities ; 
and  the  efforts  which  Shakspeare  has  made,  in  his  his- 
torical dramas,  to  approximate  to  them,  or  to  disguise 
their  absence,  are  a  new  homage  paid  to  that  moral  unity 
which  is  sufficient  for  every  thing  when  the  poet  possesses 
it,  and  which  nothing  can  replace  when  he  has  it  not.  In 
"  Hamlet"  and  "  Macbeth,"  Shakspeare,  inattentive  to 
the  course  of  time,  allows  it  to  pass  unnoticed.  In  his 
historical  plays,  on  the  other  hand,  he  conceals  and  dis- 
sembles its  lapse  by  all  the  artifices  that  can  deceive  us 
in  reference  to  its  duration ;  the  scenes  follow  and  an- 
nounce each  other  in  such  a  way,  that  an  interval  of  sev- 
eral years  seems  to  be  included  within  a  few  weeks,  or 
even  a  few  days.  All  the  probabilities  are  sacrificed  to 
this  theatrical  unity,  which  time  would  break  too  easily 
between  events  which  are  not  linked  together  by  a  uniform 
principle.  The  scene  in  which  Richard  II.  learns  from 
Aumerle  the  departure  of  Bolingbroke  into  exile,  is  that 
in  which  he  announces  that  he  is  himself  about  to  go  to 
Ireland ;  and  it  is  not  yet  thoroughly  known  at  court 
whether  he  has  actually  embarked  on  this  voyage,  when 
the  news  is  received  of  the  disembarkation  of  Boling- 
broke, returning  with  an  army,  under  the  pretext  of  as- 
serting his  rights  to  the  succession  of  his  father,  who  has 
died  in  the  interval,  but,  in  reality,  to  take  possession  of 
the  crown  ;  in  which  attempt  he  has  almost  succeeded  be- 
fore Richard,  cast  by  a  tempest  upon  the  coasts  of  En- 
gland, can  have  been  informed  of  his  arrival.  And  wo 
arc  told  at  the  end  of  the  play,  which,  dating  from  tho 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  .43 

banishment  of  Bolingbroke,  can  not  have  lasted  more  than 
fifteen  days,  that  Mowbray,  who  was  exiled  at  the  same 
time,  has  made  several  journeys  to  the  Holy  Land  during 
the  interval,  and  is  at  last  dead  in  Italy. 

These  monstrous  extravagances  would  assuredly  not  be 
numbered  among  the  proofs  of  Shakspeare's  genius,  if  they 
did  not  attest  the  empire  assumed  over  him  by  the  great 
dramatic  thought  to  which  he  sacrificed  all  beside.  Wheth- 
er in  his  historical  plays,  he  multiplies  improbabilities  and 
impossibilities  in  order  to  conceal  the  flight  of  time,  or 
whether,  in  his  finest  tragedies,  he  allows  it  to  pass  with- 
out the  slightest  notice,  he  invariably  pursues  and  at- 
tempts to  maintain  unity  of  impression,  the  great  source 
of  dramatic  effect.  We  may  see  in  "Macbeth,"  the  true 
type  of  his  system,  with  what  art  he  overcomes  the  diffi- 
culties which  arise  from  it,  and  links  together  in  the  soul 
of  the  spectator  the  chain  of  places  and  times  which  is 
constantly  being  broken  in  reality.  Macbeth,  when  re- 
solved on  the  destruction  of  Macduff,  whom  he  fears,  learns 
that  he  has  taken  flight  into  England  ;  and  he  leaves  the 
stage,  announcing  his  intention  to  surprise  his  castle,  and 
to  put  to  death  his  wife,  his  children,  and  all  who  bear 
his  name.  The  next  scenex  opens  in  Macduff's  castle,  by 
a  conversation  between  Lady  Macduff  and  her  relative, 
Rosse,  who  has  come  to  inform  her  of  her  husband's  de- 
parture, and  to  express  his  fears  for  her  own  safety.  The 
two  scenes,  thus  closely  connected  in  thought,  seem  to  be 
so  in  time  also  ;  distance  has  disappeared ;  and  who  would 
think  of  pointing  out,  as  an  interval  of  which  some  r  c- 
count  should  be  given,  the  leagues  which  separate  Mac- 
duff's castle  from  Macbeth's  palace,  and  the  time  that 
would  be  required  to  traverse  them.  We  have  entered 
without  effort  into  this  new  part  of  the  position  ;   it  fol 


144  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

lows  its  course  ;  the  assassins  appear  ;  the  massacre  com- 
mences. We  pass  into  England ;  we  behold  the  arrival 
of  Macduff  in  that  country  ;  the  terrible  events  of  which 
he  is  ignorant  fill  up,  for  us,  the  interval  which  must 
separate  his  departure  from  his  arrival.  Rosse  appears 
some  time  after  him,  and  informs  him  of  his  misfortune. 
Both  describe  to  Malcolm  the  desolation  of  Scotland,  and 
the  general  hatred  which  Macbeth  has  incurred.  The 
army  which  is  destined  to  overthrow  the  tyrant  is  collected 
together,  and  the  order  for  departure  is  given.  But,  while 
the  army  is  on  its  road,  the  poet  recalls  our  imagination 
toward  Macbeth ;  with  him  we  prepare  for  the  approach 
of  the  troops,  whose  march  is  effected  without  any  thing 
occurring  to  inform  us  of  its  duration,  or  to  lead  us  to 
make  inquiries  about  it.  Scarcely  ever,  in  Shakspeare, 
do  the  personages  of  the  drama  arrive  immediately  in  the 
place  for  which  they  have  set  out ;  so  abrupt  a  conjunc- 
tion would  be  contrary  to  the  natural  order  of  the  suc- 
cession of  ideas.  "We  have  seen  Richard  II.  set  out  for 
the  castle  of  John  of  Gaunt ;  it  is  therefore  in  John  of 
Gaunt's  castle  that  we  await  the  arrival  of  Richard,  whose 
journey  has  taken  place  without  our  mind  being  able  to 
complain  of  not  having  been  consulted  with  regard  to  the 
time  which  it  occupied.  In  the  same  manner,  between 
two  events  evidently  separated  by  an  interval  long  enough 
for  us  not  to  like  to  see  it  disappear  without  taking  sonic 
part  in  it,  Shakspeare  interposes  a  scene  which  may  be- 
long with  equal  propriety  to  either  the  first  or  the  second 
epoch,  and  he  makes  us  pass  from  one  to  the  other  without 
shocking  us  by  its  intimate  connection  with  the  scene 
which  immediately  precedes  or  follows  it.  Thus,  in 
"King  Lear,"  between  the  time  when  Lear  divides  his 
kingdom  among  hi:;  daughters,  and  the  moment  whec 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  146 

(xoneril,  already  tired  of  her  father's  presence,  determines 
to  get  rid  of  him,  the  scenes  at  Grloster's  castle,  and  the 
commencement  of  Edmund's  intrigue,  are  interposed, 
Gruided  by  that  instinct  which  is  the  science  of  genius, 
the  poet  knows  that  our  imagination  will  traverse  without 
effort  both  time  and  space  with  him,  if  he  spares  those 
moral  improbabilities  which  could  alone  arrest  its  progress. 
With  this  view,  he  sometimes  accumulates  material  un- 
likelihoods, and  sometimes  exhausts  the  ingenuity  of  his 
art ;  but,  ever  attentive  to  the  object  at  which  he  aims, 
he  can  reduce  to  unity  of  action  those  artifices  and  pre- 
paratory means  which  he  employs  to  remove  every  thing 
that  could  interfere  with  the  dramatic  illusion,  and  to  dis- 
pose freely  of  our  thought. 

Unity  of  action,  being  indispensable  to  unity  of  impres- 
sion, could  not  escape  Shakspeare's  notice.  But  how,  it 
may  be  asked,  could  he  maintain  it  in  the  midst  of  so 
many  events  of  so  changeful  and  complicated  a  nature — 
in  that  immense  field  which  includes  so  many  places,  so 
many  years,  all  conditions  of  society,  and  the  development 
of  so  many  positions  ?  Shakspeare  succeeded  in  maintain- 
ing it,  nevertheless  :  in  "  Macbeth,"  "  Hamlet,"  "  Rich- 
ard III.,"  and  "  Romeo  and  Juliet,"  the  action,  though 
vast,  does  not  cease  to  be  one,  rapid  and  complete.  This 
is  because  the  poet  has  seized  upon  its  fundamental  con- 
dition, which  consists  in  placing  the  centre  of  interest 
where  he  finds  the  centre  of  action.  The  character  vhich 
gives  movement  to  the  drama  is  also  the  one  upon  which 
the  moral  agitation  of  the  spectator  is  bestowed.  Duplic- 
ity of  action,  or  at  least  of  interest,  has  been  urged  against 
Racine's  tragedy  of  "  Andromaque,"  and  the  charge  is  not 
without  foundation  ;  it  is  not  that  all  the  parts  of  the  ac- 
tion do  not  work  together  toward  the  same  end.  but  the 


146  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

interest  is  divided,  and  the  centre  of  action  is  uncertain 
If  Shakspeare  had  had  to  treat  of  such  a  subject,  which, 
it  must  he  said,  is  not  in  great  conformity  to  the  nature 
of  his  genius,  he  would  have  made  Andromache  the  cen- 
tre of  the  action  as  well  as  of  the  interest.  Maternal  love 
would  have  pervaded  the  entire  drama,  displaying  its 
courage  as  well  as  its  fears,  its  strength  as  well  as  its  sor- 
rows. Shakspeare,  indeed,  would  not  have  hesitated  to  in- 
troduce the  child  upon  the  stage,  as  Racine  subsequently 
did  in  "  Athalie,"  when  he  had  grown  more  bold.  All 
the  emotions  of  the  spectator  would  have  been  directed 
toward  a  single  point :  we  should  have  beheld  Androma- 
che, with  greater  activity,  trying  other  means  to  save  As- 
tyanax  than  "  the  tears  of  her  mother,"  and  constantly 
riveting  upon  her  son  and  herself  an  attention  which  Ra- 
cine has  too  often  diverted  to  the  means  of  action  which 
he  was  constrained  to  derive  from  the  vicissitudes  of  the 
destiny  of  Hermione.  According  to  the  system  imposed 
upon  our  dramatic  poets  in  the  seventeenth  century,  Her- 
mione should  be  the  centre  of  the  action  ;  and  so,  in  fact, 
she  is.  Upon  a  stage  which  daily  became  more  subject 
to  the  authority  of  the  ladies  and  of  the  court,  love  seem, 
ed  destined  to  take  the  place  of  the  fatality  of  the  an- 
cients :  a  blind  power,  as  inflexible  as  fatality,  and,  like 
it,  leading  its  victims  toward  an  object  defined  from  the 
very  outset,  love  became  the  fixed  point  around  which  all 
things  should  revolve.  In  "  Andromaque,"  love  makes 
Hermione  a  simple  personage,  swayed  by  her  passion,  re- 
ferring to  it  every  thing  that  occurs  beneath  her  view,  and 
careful  to  bring  events  into  subjection  to  herself,  in  order 
to  make  them  serve  and  satisfy  her  affection.  Hermione 
alone  directs  and  gives  movement  to  the  drama  ;  Androm- 
aque only  appears  to  suffer  the  agony  of  a  position  as  now- 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  147 

erless  as  it  is  painful.  Such  an  idea  may  admit  of  admi- 
rable developments  of  the  passive  affections  of  the  heart; 
but  it  does  not  constitute  a  tragic  action ;  and  in  those 
developments  which  do  not  lead  immediately  to  action, 
our  interest  runs  the  risk  of  wandering  astray,  and  returns 
afterward  with  difficulty  into  the  only  direction  in  which 
it  can  be  maintained. 

When,  on  the  contrary,  the  centre  of  action  and  the 
centre  of  interest  are  identical — when  the  attention  of  the 
spectator  has  been  fixed  upon  the  hero  of  the  drama,  at 
once  active  and  unchanging,  whose  character,  though  it 
remains  ever  the  same,  will  lead  to  incessant  changes  in 
his  destiny — then  the  events  in  agitation  around  such  a 
man  strike  us  only  by  their  relation  to  him,  and  the  im- 
pression which  we  receive  from  them  assumes  the  color 
which  he  has  himself  imparted  to  them.  Richard  III. 
proceeds  from  plot  to  plot ;  every  new  success  redoubles 
the  terror  with  which  we  are  inspired  at  the  outset  by  his 
infernal  genius  ;  the  pity  which  each  one  of  his  victims 
successively  awakes,  becomes  merged  in  the  feelings  of 
hate  which  accumulate  upon  their  persecutor  ;  none  of 
these  particular  feelings  diverts  our  impressions  to  its  own 
advantage  ;  they  are  directed  incessantly,  and  always  with 
increasing  vigor,  toward  the  author  of  so  many  crimes  ; 
and  thus  Richard,  the  centre  of  action,  is  at  the  same 
time  the  centre  of  interest  also ;  for  dramatic  interest  is 
not  only  the  unquiet  pity  which  we  feel  for  misfortune, 
or  the  passionate  affection  with  which  we  are  inspired  by 
virtue  ;  it  is  also  hatred,  the  thirst  for  vengeance,  the  in- 
vocation of  Heaven's  justice  upon  the  malefactor,  as  well 
as  the  prayer  for  the  salvation  of  the  innocent.  All  strong 
feelings,  capable  of  exciting  the  human  soul,  can  draw  us 
in  their  train,  and  inspire  us  with  passionate  interest, 


1 48  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

they  have  no  need  to  promise  us  happiness,  or  to  gain  oui 
attachment  by  tenderness :  we  can  also  raise  ourselves  tc 
that  sublime  contempt  for  life  which  makes  men  heroes 
and  martyrs,  and  to  that  noble  indignation  beneath  which 
tyrants  succumb. 

Every  element  may  enter  into  an  action,  thus  reduced 
to  one  sole  centre,  from  which  emanate,  and  to  which  are- 
related,  all  the  events  of  the  drama,  and  all  the  impres- 
sions of  the  spectator.  Every  thing  that  moves  the  heart 
of  man,  every  thing  that  agitates  his  life,  may  combine  to 
produce  dramatic  interest,  provided  that,  being  directed 
toward  the  same  point,  and  marked  with  the  same  impress, 
the  most  various  facts  present  themselves  only  as  satellites 
of  the  principal  fact,  the  brilliancy  and  power  of  which 
they  serve  to  augment.  Nothing  will  appear  trivial,  in- 
significant, or  puerile,  if  it  imparts  greater  vitality  to  th", 
predominant  position,  or  greater  depth  to  the  general  feel- 
ing. Grrief  is  sometimes  redoubled  by  the  aspect  of  gay- 
ety  ;  in  the  midst  of  danger,  a  joke  may  increase  our  cour- 
age. Nothing  is  foreign  to  the  impression  but  that  which 
destroys  it ;  it  nourishes  itself,  and  gains  greater  power 
from  every  thing  that  can  mingle  with  it.  The  prattle  of 
young  Arthur  with  Hubert  becomes  heart-rending  from 
the  idea  of  the  horrible  barbarity  which  Hubert  is  about 
to  practice  upon  him.  We  are  filled  with  emotion  by  the 
sight  of  Lady  Macduff  lovingly  amused  by  the  witty  sal- 
lies of  her  little  son,  while  at  her  door  are  the  assassins 
who  have  come  to  massacre  that  son,  and  her  other  chil- 
dren, and  afterward  herself.  Who,  but  for  these  circum- 
stances, would  take  a  deep  interest  in  this  scene  of  ma- 
ternal childishness?  But,  if  this  scene  were  omitted, 
should  we  hate  Macbeth  as  much  as  we  ought  to  do  foi 
this  new  crime  ?     In  "  Hamlet,"  not  only  is  the  scene  oi 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  149 

the  grave-diggers  connected  with  the  general  idea  of  the 
piece  by  the  kind  of  meditations  which  it  inspires,  but — 
and  we  know  it — it  is  Ophelia's  grave  which  they  are  dig- 
ging in  Hamlet's  presence  ;  and  to  Ophelia  will  relate, 
when  he  is  informed  of  this  circumstance,  all  the  impres- 
sions which  have  been  kindled  in  his  soul  by  the  sight  of 
those  hideous  and  despised  bones,  and  the  indifference 
which  is  felt  for  the  mortal  remains  of  those  who  were  once 
beautiful  and  powerful,  honored  or  beloved.  No  detail  of 
these  mournful  preparations  is  lost  to  the  feeling  which 
they  occasion  ;  the  coarse  insensibility  of  the  men  devoted 
to  the  habits  of  such  a  trade,  their  songs  and  jokes,  all  have 
their  effect ;  and  the  forms  and  means  of  comedy  thus  en- 
ter, without  effort,  into  tragedy,  the  impressions  of  which 
are  never  more  keen  than  when  we  see  them  about  to  fall 
upon  a  man  who  is  already  their  unwitting  subject,  and 
who  is  amusing  himself  in  presence  of  the  misfortune  of 
which  he  is  unaware. 

"Without  this  use  of  the  comic,  and  without  this  inter- 
vention of  the  inferior  classes,  how  many  dramatic  effects, 
which  contribute  powerfully  to  the  general  effect,  would 
become  impossible !  Accommodate  to  the  taste  of  the 
pleasantry  of  our  age  the  scene  with  Macbeth's  porter,  and 
there  is  no  one  who  will  not  shudder  at  the  thought  of  the 
discovery  that  will  follow  this  exhibition  of  jovial  buffoon- 
ery, and  of  the  spectacle  of  carnage  still  concealed  beneath 
these  remnants  of  the  intoxication  of  a  festival.  If  Ham- 
let were  the  first  brought  into  connection  with  his  father's 
ghost,  what  preparation  and  explanations  would  be  indis- 
pensable to  place  us  in  the  state  of  mind  in  which  a  prince, 
a  man  belonging  to  the  highest  class  of  society,  must  be 
in  order  to  believe  in  a  ghost !  But  the  phantom  appears 
first  to  soldiers,  men  of  simple  t  .ind,  who  are  more  ready 


150  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

to  be  alarmed  than  astonished  at  it ;  and  they  relate  the 
story  to  one  another  in  the  night-watch : 

"  Last  night  of  all, 
When  yond'  same  star,  that's  westward  from  the  pole, 
Had  made  his  course  t'  illume  that  part  of  heaven 
Where  now  it  burns,  Marcellus,  and  myself, 
The  bell  then  beating  one — 

MAItCELLUS. 

Peace  !  break  thee  off:  look,  where  it  comes  again  !;' 

The  effect  of  terror  is  produced,  and  we  believe  in  the 
spectre  before  Hamlet  has  ever  heard  it  mentioned. 

Nor  is  this  all ;  the  intervention  of  the  inferior  classes 
furnishes  Shakspeare  with  another  means  of  effect,  which 
would  be  impracticable  in  any  other  system.  The  poet 
who  can  take  his  actors  from  all  ranks  of  society,  and  place 
them  in  all  positions,  may  also  bring  every  thing  into  ac- 
tion— that  is  to  say,  may  remain  constantly  dramatic.  In 
"  Julius  Caesar,"  the  scene  opens  with  a  living  picture  of 
popular  movements  and  feelings ;  what  explanation  or  con- 
versation could  make  us  so  well  acquainted  with  the  na- 
ture of  the  seductive  influence  exercised  by  the  Dictator 
over  the  Romans,  of  the  kind  of  danger  to  which  liberty  is 
exposed,  and  of  the  error,  as  well  as  the  peril,  of  the  repub- 
licans who  hope  to  restore  liberty  by  the  death  of  Caesar  ? 
When  Macbeth  determines  to  get  rid  of  Banquo,  he  has 
not  to  inform  us  of  his  project  in  the  person  of  a  confidant, 
or  to  receive  an  account  of  the  execution  of  the  deed  in  or- 
der to  make  us  aware  of  it :  he  sends  for  the  assassins  and 
converses  with  them  ;  we  witness  the  artifices  by  which  a 
tyrant  renders  the  passions  and  misfortunes  of  man  sub- 
servient to  his  designs ;  and  we  afterward  see  the  mur- 
derers lie  in  wait  for  their  victim,  strike  the  fatal  blow, 
and  return,  with  blood-stained  hands,  to  demand  their  re- 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  151 

ward.  Banquo  can  then  appear  to  us  ;  the  real  presence 
of  crime  has  produced  all  its  effect,  and  we  reject  none  of 
the  terrors  which  accompany  it. 

When  we  desire  to  produce  man  upon  the  stage  in  all 
the  energy  of  his  nature,  it  is  not  too  much  to  summon  to 
our  aid  man  as  a  whole,  and  to  exhibit  him  under  all  the 
forms  and  in  all  the  positions  of  which  his  existence  ad- 
mits. Such  a  representation  is  not  merely  more  complete 
and  striking,  hut  it  is  also  more  truthful  and  accurate. 
We  deceive  the  mind  with  regard  to  an  event,  if  we  pre- 
sent to  it  merely  one  salient  part  adorned  with  the  colors 
of  truth,  while  the  other  part  is  rejected  and  effaced  in  a 
conversation  or  a  narrative.  Thence  results  a  false  im- 
pression which,  in  more  than  one  instance,  has  injured 
the  effect  of  the  finest  works.  "Athalie,"  that  master- 
piece of  our  drama,  still  finds  us  imbued  with  a  certain 
prejudice  against  Joad  and  in  favor  of  Athalie,  whom  we 
do  not  hate  sufficiently  to  rejoice  in  her  destruction,  and 
whom  we  do  not  fear  enough  to  approve  the  artifice  which 
draws  her  into  the  snare.  And  yet  Athalie  has  not  only 
massacred  her  son's  children,  in  order  that  she  might  reign 
in  their  stead  ;  but  she  is  a  foreigner,  maintained  on  the 
throne  by  foreign  troops  ;  the  enemy  of  the  God  adored 
by  her  people,  she  insults  and  braves  Him  by  the  presence 
and  pomp  of  a  foreign  worship,  while  the  national  religion, 
stripped  of  its  power  and  honors,  and  clung  to  with  fear 
and  trembling  by  only  "  a  small  number  of  zealous  wor- 
shipers," daily  expects  to  fall  a  victim  to  the  hatred  of 
Mathan,  the  insolent  despotism  of  the  queen,  and  the 
avidity  of  her  base  courtiers.  Here  is,  indeed,  an  exhibi- 
tion of  tyrannv  and  misfortune ;  here  is  matter  enough  to 
drive  the  people  to  revolt,  and  to  lead  to  conspiracies  among 
'.he  last  defenders  of  their  liberties.     And  all  these  facta 


i52  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

are  related  in  the  speeches  of  Joad,  of  Abner,  of  Mathan, 
and  even  of  Athalie  herself.  But  they  are  displayed  in 
speeches  only ;  all  that  we  behold  in  action  is  Joad  con- 
spiring with  the  means  which  his  enemy  still  leaves  at 
his  disposal,  and  the  imposing  grandeur  of  the  character 
of  Athalie.  The  conspiracy  is  under  our  eyes  ;  but  we 
have  only  heard  of  tyranny.  If  the  action  had  revealed 
to  us  the  evils  which  oppression  involves ;  if  we  had  be- 
held Joad  excited  and  stimulated  to  revolt  by  the  cries  of 
the  unhappy  victims  of  the  vexations  of  the  foreigner ;  if 
the  patriotic  and  religious  indignation  of  the  people  against 
a  power  "  lavish  of  the  blood  of  the  defenseless,"  had  given 
legitimacy  to  Joad's  conduct  in  our  eyes — the  action,  when 
thus  completed,  would  leave  no  uncertainty  in  our  minds ; 
and  "Athalie"  would  perhaps  present  to  us  the  ideal  of 
dramatic  poetry,  at  least,  according  to  our  conception  of 
it  at  the  present  time. 

Though  easily  attained  among  the  Greeks,  whose  life 
and  feelings  might  be  summed  up  in  a  few  large  and 
simple  features,  this  ideal  did  not  present  itself  to  modern 
nations  under  forms  sufficiently  general  and  pure  to  re- 
ceive the  application  of  the  rules  laid  down  in  accordance 
with  the  ancient  models.  France,  in  order  to  adopt  them, 
was  compelled  to  limit  its  field,  in  some  sort,  to  one  corner 
of  human  existence.  Our  poets  have  employed  all  the 
powers  of  genius  to  turn  this  narrow  space  to  advantage  ; 
the  abysses  of  the  heart  have  been  sounded  to  their  ut- 
most depth,  but  not  in  all  their  dimensions.  Dramatic 
illusion  has  been  sought  at  its  true  source,  but  it  has  not 
been  required  to  furnish  all  the  effects  that  might  have 
been  obtained  from  it.  Shakspeare  offers  to  us  a  more 
fruitful  and  a  vaster  system.  It  would  be  a  strange  mis- 
take to  suppose  that  he  has  discovered  and  brought  to  light 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  153 

all  its  wealth.  When  we  embrace  human  destiny  in  all 
its  aspects,  and  human  nature  in  all  the  conditions  of  man 
upon  earth,  we  enter  into  possession  of  an  exhaustles? 
treasure.  It  is  the  peculiar  advantage  of  such  a  system, 
that  it  escapes,  by  its  extent,  from  the  dominion  of  any 
particular  genius.  We  may  discover  its  principles  in 
Shakspeare's  works ;  but  he  was  not  fully  acquainted 
with  them,  nor  did  he  always  respect  them.  He  should 
serve  as  an  example,  not  as  a  model.  Some  men,  even 
of  superior  talent,  have  attempted  to  write  plays  accord- 
ing to  Shakspeare's  taste,  without  perceiving  that  they 
were  deficient  in  one  important  qualification  for  the  task  ; 
and  that  was,  to  write  as  he  did,  to  write  them  for  our  age, 
just  as  Shakspeare's  plays  were  written  for  the  age  in 
which  he  lived.  This  is  an  enterprise,  the  difficulties  of 
which  have  hitherto,  perhaps,  been  maturely  considered 
by  no  one.  We  have  seen  how  much  art  and  effort  was 
employed  by  Shakspeare  to  surmount  those  which  are  in- 
herent in  his  system.  They  are  still  greater  in  our  times, 
and  would  unvail  themselves  much  more  completely  to  the 
spirit  of  criticism  which  now  accompanies  the  boldest  es- 
says of  genius.  It  is  not  only  with  spectators  of  more  fas- 
tidious taste,  and  of  more  idle  and  inattentive  imagina- 
tion, that  the  poet  would  have  to  do,  who  should  venture 
to  follow  in  Shakspeare's  footsteps.  He  would  be  called 
upon  to  give  movement  to  personages  embarrassed  in  much, 
more  complicated  interests,  pre-occupied  with  much  more 
various  feelings,  and  subject  to  less  simple  habits  of  mind, 
and  to  less  decided  tendencies.  Neither  science,  nor  re- 
flection, nor  the  scruples  of  conscience,  nor  the  uncertain- 
ties of  thought,  frequently  encumber  Shakspeare's  heroes ; 
doubt  is  of  little  use  among  them,  and  the  violence  of  their 
passions  speedily  transfers  their  belief  to  the  side  of  their 


154  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES. 

desires,  or  sets  their  actions  above  their  belief.  Hamlet 
alone  presents  the  confused  spectacle  of  a  mind  formed  by 
the  enlightenmeni  of  society,  in  conflict  with  a  position 
contrary  to  its  laws ;  and  he  needs  a  supernatural  appa- 
rition to  determine  him  to  act,  and  a  fortuitous  event  to 
accomplish  his  project.  If  incessantly  placed  in  an  anal- 
ogous position,  the  personages  of  a  tragedy  conceived  at 
the  present  day,  according  to  the  romantic  system,  would 
offer  us  the  same  picture  of  indecision.  Ideas  now  crowd 
and  intersect  each  other  in  the  mind  of  man,  duties  mul- 
tiply in  his  conscience,  and  obstacles  and  bonds  around 
his  life.  Instead  of  those  electric  brains,  prompt  to  com- 
municate the  spark  which  they  have  received — instead  of 
those  ardent  and  simple-minded  men,  whose  projects,  like 
Macbeth's,  "  will  to  hand" — the  world  now  presents  to  the 
poet  minds  like  Hamlet's,  deep  in  the  observation  of  those 
inward  conflicts  which  our  classical  system  has  derived 
from  a  state  of  society  more  advanced  than  that  of  the 
time  in  which  Shakspeare  lived.  So  many  feelings,  in- 
terests, and  ideas,  the  necessary  consequences  of  modern 
civilization,  might  become,  even  in  their  simplest  form  of 
expression,  a  troublesome  burden,  which  it  would  be  dif- 
ficult to  carry  through  the  rapid  evolutions  and  bold  ad- 
vances of  the  romantic  system. 

"We  must,  however,  satisfy  every  demand ;  success  it- 
self requires  it.  The  reason  must  be  contented  at  the 
same  time  that  the  imagination  is  occupied.  The  progress 
of  taste,  of  enlightenment,  of  society,  and  of  mankind, 
must  serve,  not  to  diminish  or  disturb  our  enjoyment,  but 
to  render  them  worthy  of  ourselves,  and  capable  of  supply- 
ing the  new  wants  which  we  have  contracted.  Advance 
without  rule  and  art  in  the  romantic  system,  and  you  will 
produce  melodrames  calculated  to  excite  a  passing  emotion 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  155 

in  the  multitude,  but  in  the  multitude  alone,  and  for  a 
few  days ;  just  as,  by  dragging  along  without  originality 
in  the  classical  system,  you  will  satisfy  only  that  cold  lit- 
erary class  who  are  acquainted  with  nothing  in  nature 
which  is  more  important  than  the  interests  of  versification, 
or  more  imposing  than  the  three  unities.  This  is  not  the 
work  of  the  poet  who  is  called  to  power  and  destined  for 
glory ;  he  acts  upon  a  grander  scale,  and  can  address  the 
superior  intellects,  as  well  as  the  general  and  simple  facul- 
ties of  all  men.  It  is  doubtless  necessary  that  the  crowd 
should  throng  to  behold  those  dramatic  works  of  which 
you  desire  to  make  a  national  spectacle  ;  but  do  not  hope 
to  become  national  if  you  do  not  unite  in  your  festivities 
all  those  classes  of  persons  and  minds  whose  well-arranged 
hierarchy  raises  a  nation  to  its  loftiest  dignity.  G-enius  is 
bound  to  follow  human  nature  in  all  its  developments ;  its 
strength  consists  in  finding  within  itself  the  means  for  con- 
stantly satisfying  the  whole  of  the  public.  The  same  task 
is  now  imposed  upon  government  and  upon  poetry ;  both 
should  exist  for  all,  and  suffice  at  once  for  the  wants  of  the 
masses  and  for  the  requirements  of  the  most  exalted  minds. 
Doubtless  stopped  in  its  course  by  these  conditions,  the 
full  severity  of  which  will  only  be  revealed  to  the  talent 
that  can  comply  with  them,  dramatic  art,  even  in  England, 
where,  under  the  protection  of  Shakspeare,  it  would  have 
liberty  to  attempt  any  thing,  scarcely  ventures  at  the  pres- 
ent day  to  endeavor  timidly  to  follow  him.  Meanwhile, 
England,  France,  and  the  whole  of  Europe  demand  of  the 
drama  pleasures  and  emotions  that  can  no  longer  be  sup- 
plied by  the  inanimate  representation  of  a  world  that  has 
ceased  to  exist.  The  classical  system  had  its  origin  in  the 
life  of  its  time  ;  that  time  has  passed  ;  its  image  subsists 
in  brilliant  colors  in  its  works,  but  can  no  more  be  repro- 


156  SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES 

duced.  Near  the  monuments  of  past  ages,  the  monuments 
of  another  age  are  now  beginning  to  arise.  "What  will  be 
their  form  ?  I  can  not  tell ;  but  the  ground  upon  which 
their  foundations  may  rest  is  already  perceptible.  This 
ground  is  not  the  ground  of  Corneille  and  Racine,  nor  is 
it  that  of  Shakspeare ;  it  is  our  own ;  but  Shakspeare's 
system,  as  it  appears  to  me,  may  furnish  the  plans  accord- 
ing to  which  genius  ought  now  to  work.  This  system 
alone  includes  all  those  social  conditions  and  all  those  gen- 
eral or  diverse  feelings,  the  simultaneous  conjunction  and 
activity  of  which  constitute  for  us,  at  the  present  day, 
the  spectacle  of  human  things.  Witnesses,  during  thirty 
years,  of  the  greatest  revolutions  of  society,  we  shall  no 
longer  willingly  confine  the  movement  of  our  mind  within 
the  narrow  space  of  some  family  event,  or  the  agitations 
of  a  purely  individual  passion.  The  nature  and  destiny 
of  man  have  appeared  to  us  under  their  most  striking  and 
their  simplest  aspect,  in  all  their  extent  and  in  all  theii 
variableness.  We  require  pictures  in  which  this  spectacle 
is  reproduced,  in  which  man  is  displayed  in  his  complete- 
ness,  and  excites  our  entire  sympathy.  The  moral  dispo- 
sitions which  impose  this  necessity  upon  poetry  will  not 
change  ;  but  we  shall  see  them,  on  the  contrary,  manifest, 
ing  themselves  more  plainly,  and  receiving  greater  devel- 
opment, day  by  day.  Interests,  duties,  and  a  movement 
common  to  all  classes  of  citizens,  will  strengthen  among 
them  that  chain  of  habitual  relations  with  which  all  pub- 
lic feelings  connect  themselves.  Never  could  dramatic 
ait  have  taken  its  subjects  from  an  order  of  ideas  at  once 
more  popular  and  more  elevated ;  never  was  the  connec- 
tion between  the  most  vulgar  interests  of  man  and  tho 
principles  upon  which  his  highest  destinies  are  dependent, 
more  clearly  present  to  all  minds  ;  and  the  importance  of 


SHAKSPEARE  AND  HIS  TIMES.  157 

an  event  may  now  appear  in  its  pettiest  details  as  well 
as  in  its  mightiest  results.  In  this  state  of  society,  a  new 
dramatic  system  ought  to  be  established.  It  should  bo 
liberal  and  free,  but  not  without  principles  and  laws.  It 
should  establish  itself  like  liberty,  not  upon  disorder  and 
forgetfulness  of  every  check,  but  upon  rules  more  severe 
and  more  difficult  of  observance,  perhaps,  than  those  which 
are  still  enforced  to  maintain  what  is  called  order  against 
what  is  designated  license. 


HISTORICAL  AND  CRITICAL  NOTICES 


PRINCIPAL  DRAMAS  OF  SHAKSPEARE. 


ROMEO   AND   JULIET. 

(1595.) 


Two  powerful  families  of  Verona,  the  Montecchi  and 
the  Capelletti  (the  Montagues  and  Capulets),  had  long 
lived  on  terms  of  such  hostility  to  each  other,  that  it  had 
frequently  led  to  sanguinary  conflicts  in  the  opon  streets. 
Alberto  della  Scala,  the  second  perpetual  captain  of  Verona, 
had  ineffectually  endeavored  to  reconcile  them ;  but  he 
succeeded  so  far  in  bridling  then  enmity,  that  "  when 
they  met,"  says  Grirolamo  della  Corte,  the  historian  of 
Verona,  "  the  younger  men  made  way  for  their  elders, 
and  they  mutually  exchanged  salutations." 

In  the  year  1303,  under  the  reign  of  Bartolommeo  della 
Scala,  who  had  been  chosen  perpetual  captain  on  the  death 
of  his  father  Alberto,  Antonio  Capelletto,  the  leader  of  his 
faction,  gave  a  great  entertainment  during  the  carnival, 
to  which  he  invited  most  of  the  nobility  of  Verona.  Ro- 
meo Montecchio,  who  was  about  twenty-one  years  of  age, 
and  one  of  the  handsomest  and  most  amiable  young  men 
in  the  city,  went  thither  in  a  mask,  accompanied  by  some 
of  his  friends.  After  some  time,  taking  off  his  mask,  he 
sat  down  in  a  corner,  from  which  he  could  see  and  be 
seen.  Much  astonishment  was  felt  at  the  boldness  with 
which  he  had  thus  ventured  in  the  midst  of  his  enemies. 
However,  as  he  was  young  and  of  agreeable  manners,  the 


162  SHAKSPEARE'S  TRAGEDIES. 

Capulets,  says  the  historian,  "  did  not  pay  so  much  atten« 
tion  to  his  presence  as  they  might  have  done  if  he  had 
been  older."  His  eyes  and  those  of  Griulietta  Capelletto 
soon  met,  and  being  equally  struck  with  admiration,  they 
did  not  cease  to  look  at  each  other.  The  festivities  term- 
inated with  a  dance,  which  "  among  us,"  says  Girolamo, 
"  is  called  the  hat-dance  (dal  cappello),"  in  which  Romeo 
engaged  ;  but,  after  having  danced  a  few  figures  with  his 
partner,  he  left  her  to  join  Juliet,  who  was  dancing  with 
another.  "  Immediately  that  she  felt  him  touch  her  hand, 
she  said,  '  Blessed  be  your  coming !'  And  he,  pressing 
her  hand,  replied,  '  What  blessing  do  you  receive  from  it, 
lady  ?'  And  she  answered,  with  a  smile,  '  Be  not  sur- 
prised, sir,  that  I  bless  your  coming  ;  Signor  Mercurio  had 
been  chilling  me  for  a  long  while,  but  by  your  politeness 
you  have  restored  me  to  warmth.'  (The  hands  of  this 
young  man,  who  was  called  Mercurio  the  Squinter,  and 
who  was  beloved  by  every  one  for  the  charms  of  his  mind, 
were  always  colder  than  ice.)  To  these  words,  Romeo 
replied,  '  I  am  greatly  delighted  to  do  you  service  in  any 
thing.'  When  the  dance  was  over,  Juliet  could  say  no 
more  than  this :  '  Alas !  I  am  more  yours  than  my  own.' " 
Romeo  having  repaired  on  several  occasions  to  a  small 
street  upon  which  Juliet's  windows  looked  out,  one  even- 
ing she  recognized  him  "by  his  sneezing  or  some  other 
sign,"  and  opened  the  window ;  they  saluted  each  other 
very  courteously  (cortesissimamente),  and,  after  having 
conversed  for  a  long  while  of  their  loves,  they  agreed  that 
they  must  be  married,  whatever  might  happen  ;  and  that 
the  ceremony  should  be  performed  by  Friar  Leonardo,  a 
Franciscan  monk,  who  was  "  a  theologian,  a  great  philos- 
opher, an  admirable  distiller,  a  proficient  in  the  art  of 
magic,"  and  the  confessor  of  nearly  all  the  town.     Romeo 


ROMEO  AND  JULIET.  163 

went  to  see  this  worthy ;  and  the  monk,  thinking  of  the 
credit  he  would  gain,  not  only  with  the  perpetual  captain, 
but  also  with  the  whole  city,  if  he  succeeded  in  recon- 
ciling the  two  families,  acceded  to  the  request  of  the 
young  couple.  On  Quadragesima  Sunday,  when  confes- 
sion was  obligatory,  Juliet  went  with  her  mother  to  the 
church  of  St.  Francis  in  the  citadel ;  and  having  entered 
first  into  the  confessional,  on  the  other  side  of  which  Ro- 
meo was  stationed,  they  received  the  nuptial  benediction 
through  the  window  of  the  confessional,  which  the  monk 
had  had  the  kindness  to  leave  open.  Afterward,  by  the 
connivance  of  a  very  adroit  old  nurse  of  Juliet's,  they 
spent  the  night  together  in  her  garden. 

However,  after  the  festival  of  Easter,  a  numerous  troop 
of  Capulets  met,  at  a  little  distance  from  the  gates  of  Ve- 
rona, a  band  of  Montagues,  and  attacked  them,  at  the  in- 
stigation of  Tebaldo,  a  cousin-german  of  Juliet,  who,  see- 
ing Romeo  use  every  effort  to  put  an  end  to  the  combat, 
went  up  to  him,  and,  forcing  him  to  defend  himself,  re- 
ceived a  sword-thrust  in  his  throat,  from  which  he  fell 
dead  on  the  spot.  Romeo  was  banished  ;  and  a  short 
time  afterward,  Juliet,  on  the  point  of  finding  herself  com- 
pelled to  marry  another,  had  recourse  to  Friar  Leonardo, 
who  gave  her  a  powder  to  swallow,  by  means  of  which 
she  would  appear  to  be  dead,  and  would  be  interred  in 
the  family  vault,  which  happened  to  be  in  the  church  at- 
tached to  Leonardo's  convent.  The  monk  was  to  deliver 
her  immediately  from  her  grave,  and  to  send  her  in  dis- 
guise to  Mantua,  where  Romeo  was  residing;  and  he 
promised  to  inform  her  lover  of  their  design. 

Matters  were  arranged  as  Leonardo  had  suggested  ;  but 
Romeo,  having  been  informed  of  Juliet's  death  by  an  in- 
direct source,  before  he  received  the  monk's  letter,  set  ou+ 


164  SHAKSPEARE'S  TRAGEDIES 

at  once  for  Verona  with  a  single  domestic,  and,  having  pro. 
vided  himself  with  a  violent  poison,  hastened  tc  the  tomb, 
opened  it,  bathed  Juliet's  body  with  his  tears,  swallowed 
the  poison,  and  died.  Juliet  awaking  from  her  trance  the 
instant  afterward,  seeing  Romeo  dead,  and  learning  from 
the  monk,  who  had  come  up  in  the  meanwhile,  all  that 
had  happened,  was  seized  with  such  violent  paroxysms  of 
grief,  that,  "without  being  able  to  utter  a  word,  she  fell 
dead  upon  the  bosom  of  her  Romeo."* 

This  story  is  told  as  true  by  Grirolamo  della  Corte,  and 
he  assures  his  readers  that  he  had  often  seen  the  tomb  of 
Romeo  and  Juliet,  which,  rising  a  little  above  the  level 
of  the  ground,  and  being  situated  near  a  well,  then  serv- 
ed as  a  laundry  to  the  orphan  asylum  of  St.  Francis,  which 
was  being  built  in  that  locality.  He  relates,  at  the  same 
time,  that  the  Cavalier  Grerardo  Boldiero,  his  uncle,  who 
had  first  taken  him  to  this  tomb,  had  pointed  out  to  him, 
at  a  corner  of  the  wall,  near  the  Capuchin  Convent,  the 
place  from  which  he  had  heard  it  said  that  the  bones  of 
Romeo  and  Juliet,  and  of  several  other  persons,  had  been 
transferred  a  great  number  of  years  before.  Captain  Bre- 
val,  in  his  Travels,  also  mentions  that  he  saw  at  Verona, 
in  1762,  an  old  building  which  was  then  an  orphan  asylum, 
and  which  his  guide  informed  him  had  once  contained  the 
tomb  of  Romeo  and  Juliet,  but  that  it  no  longer  existed. 

It  was  probably  not  in  accordance  with  the  narrative 
of  Grirolamo  della  Corte  that  Shakspeare  composed  his 
tragedy.  It  was  first  performed,  as  it  would  appear,  in 
1595,  under  the  patronage  of  Lord  Hunsdon,  the  Lord 
Chamberlain  of  Q,ueen  Elizabeth,  and  was  printed  for  the 
first  time  in  1597.     Now  the  work  of  Grirolamo  della  Cor- 

*  See  Girolamo  della  Corte,  "  Istorie  di  Verona,"  vol.  i.,  p.    89,  tt  seq 
ed   1594. 


ROMEO  AND  JULIET.  165 

te,  which  was  intended  to  contain  twenty-two  hooks,  was 
interrupted  in  the  middle  of  the  twentieth  hook,  and  in 
the  year  1560,  hy  the  illness  of  the  author.  "We  learn, 
moreover,  from  the  editor's  preface,  that  this  illness  was 
prolonged,  and  terminated  in  the  death  of  the  historian ; 
that  the  necessity  for  revising  a  work,  to  which  Grirolamo 
himself  had  been  unable  to  give  the  finishing  stroke,  oc- 
cupied a  considerable  period;  and,  finally,  that  the  law- 
suits, "  both  civil  and  criminal,"  with  which  the  editor  was 
tormented,  prevented  him  from  bringing  his  undertaking  to 
a  conclusion  as  promptly  as  he  could  have  desired  ;  so  that 
the  work  of  Grirolamo  could  not  have  been  published  un- 
til a  long  while  after  his  death.  The  edition  of  1594  is, 
therefore,  to  all  appearance,  the  first  edition,  and  could 
scarcely  have  fallen  into  Shakspeare's  hands  so  early  as 
1595. 

But  the  history  of  Romeo  and  Juliet,  which  was  doubt- 
less very  popular  at  Verona,  had  already  formed  the  sub- 
ject of  a  novel  by  Luigi  da  Porto,  published  at  Venice  in 
1535,  six  years  after  the  death  of  the  author,  under  the 
title  of  "  La  GHulietta."  This  novel  was  reprinted,  trans- 
lated and  imitated  in  several  languages,  and  furnished  Ar- 
thur Brooke  with  the  subject  of  an  English  poem,  which 
was  published  in  1562,  and  from  which  Shakspeare  cer- 
tainly derived  the  subject  of  his  tragedy.*  The  imitation 
is  complete.  Juliet,  in  Brooke's  poem,  as  well  as  in  the 
novel  of  Luigi  da  Porto,  kills  herself  with  Romeo's  dag- 
ger, instead  of  dying  of  grief,  as  in  the  history  of  Grirolamo 
della  Corte ;  but  it  is  a  singular  circumstance,  that  both 

*  The  title  is,  "  The  Tragicall  Historye  of  Romeus  and  Juliet,  contain. 
in"-  a  rare  Example  of  true  Constancie ;  with  the  Subtill  Counsels  and 
Practises  of  an  old  Fryer,  and  their  ill  event."  This  poem  has  been  re- 
printed at  the  end  of  the  tragedy  in  the  large  editions  of  Shakspeare ; 
among  others,  in  Malone's  edition. 


166  SHAKSPEARE'S  TRAGEDIES. 

Arthur  Brooke's  poem  and  Shakspeare's  tragedy  make 
Romeo  die,  as  in  the  history,  before  Juliet  awakes,  where- 
as, in  the  novel  of  Luigi  da  Porto,  he  does  not  die  until 
after  he  has  witnessed  her  restoration  to  life,  and  had  a 
scene  of  sorrowful  farewell  with  her.  Shakspeare  has 
been  blamed  for  not  having  adopted  this  version,  which 
would  have  furnished  him  with  a  very  pathetic  position ; 
and  it  has  been  inferred  that  he  was  not  acquainted  with 
the  Italian  novel,  although  it  had  been  translated  into 
English.  Several  circumstances,  however,  give  us  reason 
to  believe  that  Shakspeare  was  acquainted  with  this  trans- 
lation. As  for  his  motives  for  preferring  the  poet's  narra- 
tive to  that  of  the  novelist,  he  may  have  had  many ;  in 
the  first  place,  to  account  for  his  departing  in  so  important 
a  point  from  the  novel  of  Luigi  da  Porto,  which  he  has 
followed  most  scrupulously  in  almost  every  other  particu- 
lar, perhaps  Arthur  Brooke,  the  author  of  the  poem,  may 
have  had  some  knowledge  of  the  true  history,  as  related 
by  Grirolamo  della  Corte.  Being  a  contemporary  of  Shaks- 
peare, he  may  have  communicated  this  to  him,  and  Shaks- 
peare's careful  conformity,  as  far  as  he  was  able,  to  history, 
or  to  the  narratives  received  as  such,  would  not  have  al- 
lowed him  to  hesitate  as  to  his  choice.  Moreover  —  and 
this  was  probably  the  true  reason  of  the  poet — Shakspeare 
very  seldom  precedes  a  strong  resolution  by  long  speeches. 
As  Macbeth  says : 

"  Words  to  the  heat  of  deeds  too  cold  breath  gives." 

Whatever  anguish  reflection  may  add  to  grief,  it  fixes  the 
mind  on  too  large  a  number  of  objects  not  to  distract  it 
from  the  single  and  absorbing  idea  which  leads  to  despe- 
rate actions.  After  having  received  Romeo's  farewell,  ami 
lamented  his  death  in  concert  with  him,  it  might  have 


ROMEO  AND  JULIET.  167 

happened  that  Juliet  would  have  bewailed  him  ail  her  life 
instead  of  killing  herself  on  the  spot.  Garrick  rewrote 
the  scene  in  the  monument,  in  accordance  with  the  sup- 
position adopted  in  the  novel  of  Luigi  da  Porto ;  the  scene 
is  touching,  but,  as  was  perhaps  inevitable  in  such  a  situ- 
ation, which  it  would  be  impossible  to  delineate  in  words, 
the  feelings  are  too  much  and  too  little  agitated,  and  the 
despair  is  either  excessive  or  not  sufficiently  violent.  In 
the  laconism  of  Shakspeare's  "  Romeo  and  Juliet,"  in  these 
last  moments,  there  is  much  more  passion  and  truth. 

This  laconism  is  all  the  more  remarkable,  because  dur- 
ing the  whole  course  of  the  play,  Shakspeare  has  aban- 
doned himself  without  constraint  to  that  abundance  of  re- 
flection and  discourse  which  is  one  of  the  characteristics 
of  his  genius.  Nowhere  is  the  contrast  more  striking  be- 
tween the  depth  of  the  feelings  which  the  poet  describes, 
and  the  form  in  which  he  expresses  them.  Shakspeare 
excels  in  seeing  our  human  feelings  as  they  really  exist 
in  nature,  without  premeditation,  without  any  labor  of 
man  upon  himself,  ingenuous  and  impetuous,  mingled  of 
good  and  evil,  of  vulgar  instincts  and  sublime  inspirations, 
just  as  the  human  soul  is,  in  its  primitive  and  spontane- 
ous state.  What  can  be  more  truthful  than  the  love  of 
Komeo  and  Juliet,  so  young,  so  ardent,  so  unreflecting, 
full  at  once  of  physical  passion  and  of  moral  tenderness, 
without  restraint,  and  yet  without  coarseness,  because  del- 
icacy of  heart  ever  combines  with  the  transports  of  the 
senses  !  There  is  nothing  subtle  or  factitious  in  it,  and 
nothing  cleverly  arranged  by  the  poet ;  it  is  neither  the 
pure  love  of  piously  exalted  imaginations,  nor  the  licen- 
tious love  of  palled  and  perverted  lives ;  it  is  love  itself 
— love  complete,  involuntary  and  sovereign,  as  it  bursts 
forth  in  early  youth,  in  the  heart  of  man,  at  once  simple 


168  SHAKSPEARE'S  TRAGEDIES. 

and  diverse,  as  Grod  made  it.  "Romeo  and  Juliet"  ia 
truly  the  tragedy  of  love,  as  "  Othello"  is  that  of  jealousy, 
and  "  Macbeth"  that  of  ambition.  Each  of  the  great  dra- 
mas of  Shakspeare  is  dedicated  to  one  of  the  great  feelings 
cf  humanity  ;  and  the  feeling  which  pervades  the  drama 
is,  in  very  reality,  that  which  occupies  and  possesses  the 
human  soul  when  under  its  influence.  Shakspeare  omits, 
adds,  and  alters  nothing;  he  brings  it  on  the  stage  simply 
and  boldly,  in  its  energetic  and  complete  truth. 

Pass  now  from  the  substance  to  the  form,  and  from  the 
feeling  itself  to  the  language  in  which  it  is  clothed  by  the 
poet ;  and  observe  the  contrast !  In  proportion  as  the  feel- 
ing is  true  and  profoundly  known  and  understood,  its  ex- 
pression is  often  factitious,  laden  with  developments  and 
ornaments  in  which  the  mind  of  the  poet  takes  delight, 
but  which  do  not  flow  naturally  from  the  lips  of  a  dra- 
matic personage.  Of  all  Shakspeare's  great  dramas,  "  Ro- 
meo and  Juliet"  is,  perhaps,  the  one  in  which  this  fault  is 
most  abundant.  "We  might  almost  say  that  Shakspeare 
had  attempted  to  imitate  that  copiousness  of  words,  and 
that  verbose  facility  which,  in  literature  as  well  as  life, 
generally  characterize  the  peoples  of  the  South.  He  had 
certainly  read,  at  least  in  translation,  some  of  the  Italian 
poets ;  and  the  innumerable  subtleties  interwoven,  as  it 
were,  into  the  language  of  all  the  personages  in  "  Romeo 
and  Juliet,"  and  the  introduction  of  continual  comparisons 
with  the  sun,  the  flowers,  and  the  stars,  though  often  brill- 
iant and  graceful,  are  evidently  an  imitation  of  the  style 
•  »f  the  sonnets,  and  a  debt  paid  to  local  coloring.  It  is, 
perhaps,  because  the  Italian  sonnets  almost  always  adopt 
a  plaintive  tone,  that  choice  and  exaggeration  of  language 
are  particularly  perceptible  in  the  complaints  of  the  two 
lovers.     The  expression  of  their  brief  happiness  is,  espe* 


ROMEO  AND  JULIET.  169 

cially  in  the  mouth  of  Juliet,  of  ravishing  simplicity  ;  and 
when  they  reach  the  final  term  of  their  destiny,  when  the 
poet  enters  upon  the  last  scene  of  this  mournful  tragedy, 
he  renounces  all  his  attempts  at  imitation,  and  all  his" 
wittily  wise  reflections.  His  characters,  who,  says  John- 
son, "  have  a  conceit  left  them  in  their  misery,"  lose  this 
peculiarity  when  misery  has  struck  its  heavy  blows ;  the 
imagination  ceases  to  play ;  passion  itself  no  longer  ap- 
pears, unless  united  to  solid,  serious,  and  almost  stern  feel- 
ings ;  and  that  mistress,  who  was  so  eager  for  the  joys  of 
love,  Juliet,  when  threatened  in  her  conjugal  fidelity, 
thinks  of  nothing  hut  the  fulfillment  of  her  duties,  and 
how  she  may  remain  without  blemish  the  wife  of  her  dear 
Romeo.  What  an  admirable  trait  of  moral  sense  and  good 
sense  is  this  in  a  genius  devoted  to  the  delineation  of 
passion ! 

However,  Shakspeare  was  mistaken  when  he  thought 
that,  by  prodigality  of  reflections,  imagery,  and  words,  he 
was  imitating  Italy  and  her  poets.  At  least  he  was  not 
Imitating  the  masters  of  Italian  poetry,  his  equals,  and  the 
only  ones  who  deserved  his  notice.  Between  them  and 
him,  the  difference  is  immense  and  singular.  It  is  in  com- 
prehension of  the  natural  feelings  that  Shakspeare  excels, 
&nd  he  depicts  them  with  as  much  simplicity  and  truth 
of  substance  as  he  clothes  them  with  affectation  and  some- 
times whimsicality  of  language.  It  is,  on  the  contrary, 
into  these  feelings  themselves  that  the  great  Italian  poets 
of  the  fourteenth  century,  and  especially  Petrarch,  fre- 
quently introduce  as  much  refinement  and  subtlety  as  ele- 
vation and  grace  ;  they  alter  and  transform,  according  to 
their  religious  and  moral  beliefs,  or  even  to  their  literary 
tastes,  those  instincts  and  passions  of  the  human  heart  to 
which  .Shakspeare  leaves  their  native  physiognomy  and 

H 


170  SHAKSPEARE'S  TRAGEDIES. 

liberty.  What  can  be  less  similar  than  the  love  of  Pe- 
trarch for  Laura,  and  that  of  Juliet  for  Romeo  ?  In  com* 
pensation,  the  expression,  in  Petrarch,  is  almost  always  as 
natural  as  the  feeling  is  refined  ;  and  whereas  Shakspeare 
presents  perfectly  simple  and  true  emotions  beneath  a 
strange  and  affected  form,  Petrarch  lends  to  mystical,  or 
at  least  singular  and  very  restrained  emotions,  all  the  charm 
of  a  simple  and  pure  form. 

I  will  quote  only  one  example  of  this  difference  between 
the  two  poets,  but  it  is  a  very  striking  example,  for  it  is 
one  in  which  both  have  tried  their  powers  upon  the  same 
position,  the  same  feeling,  and  almost  the  same  image. 

Laura  is  dead.  Petrarch  is  desirous  of  depicting,  on 
her  entrance  upon  the  sleep  of  death,  her  whom  he  had 
painted  so  frequently,  and  with  such  charming  passion, 
in  the  brilliancy  of  life  and  youth : 

"  Non  come  fiamma  che  per  forza  e  spenta, 

Ma  che  per  se  medesraa  si  consume, 

Se  n'ando  in  pace  l'animo  contenta. 
A  guisa  d'un  soave.  e  chiaro  lume, 

Cui  nutrimento  a  poco  a  poco  manca, 

Tenendo  al  fin  il  sue-  usato  costume ; 
Pallida  no,  ma  piu.  che  neve  bianca 

Che  senza  vento  in  un  bel  colle  fiocchi, 

Parea  posar  come  persona  stanca. 
Quasi  un  dolce  dormir  ne:  suoi  begli  occhi, 

Sendo  lo  sperto  gia  de  lei  diviso, 

Era  quel  che  morir  chiaman  gli  sciocchi, 
Morte  bella  parea  nel  suo  bel  viso."* 

The  following  translation  is  from  the  pen  of  Captain 
Macgregor : 

"  Not  as  a  flame  which  suddenly  is  spent, 
But  one  that  gently  finds  its  natural  close, 
To  heaven,  in  peace,  her  willing  spirit  rose ; 

*  Petrarch,  "  Trionfo  della  Matte,"  cap.  i.,  lines  160-172 


ROMEO  AND  JULIET.  lTl 

As,  nutriment  denied,  a  lovely  light, 

By  fine  gradations  failing,  less,  less  bright, 

E'en  to  the  last  gives  forth  a  lambent  glow: 

Not  pale,  but  fairer  than  the  virgin  snow, 

Falling,  when  winds  are  laid,  on  earth's  green  breast, 

She  seem'd  a  saint  from  life's  vain  toils  at  rest. 

As  if  a  sweet  sleep  o'er  those  bright  eyes  came, 

Her  spirit  mounted  to  the  throne  of  grace  ! 
If  this  we,  in  our  folly,  Death  do  name, 

Then  Death  seem'd  lovely  on  that  lovely  face."* 

Juliet  also  is  dead.  Romeo  contemplates  her  as  she 
lies  in  her  tomb,  and  he  also  expatiates  upon  her  beauty : 

#  #  #  "  0,  my  love  !  my  wife ! 
Death,  that  hath  suck'd  tho  honey  of  thy  breath, 
Hath  had  no  power  yet  upon  thy  beauty ; 
Thou  art  not  conquer' d ;  beauty's  ensign  yet 
Is  crimson  in  thy  lips  and  on  thy  cheeks, 
And  death's  pale  flag  is  not  advanced  there." 

I  need  not  insist  upon  the  comparison ;  who  does  not 
feel  how  much  more  simple  and  beautiful  the  form  of  ex- 
pression is  in  Petrarch?  It  is  the  brilliant  and  flowing 
poetry  of  the  South,  beside  the  strong,  rough,  and  vigorous 
imagination  of  the  North. 

The  love  of  Romeo  for  Rosaline  is  an  invention  of  Euigi 
da  Porto,  retained  in  the  poem  of  Arthur  Brooke.  This 
invention  imparts  so  little  interest  to  the  first  acts  of  the 
drama,  that  Shakspeare  probably  adopted  it  merely  with  a 
view  to  giving  greater  effect  to  that  character  of  sudden- 
ness which  distinguishes  the  passions  of  a  Southern  clime. 
The  part  of  Mercutio  was  suggested  to  him  by  these  lines 
of  the  English  poem  : 

"  A  courtier  that  eche  where  was  highly  had  in  price, 
For  he  was  courteous  of  his  speeche,  and  pleasant  of  devise. 
Even  as  a  lyon  would  emong  the  lambs  be  bolde, 
Such  was  emong  the  bashful  maydes  Mercutio  to  behokle." 

*  Macgregor's  "  Odes  of  Petrarch,"  p.  220. 


172  SHAKSPEARE'S  TRAGEDIES. 

Such  was,  doubtless,  the  bel  air  in  Shakspeare's  time, 
and  it  is  as  the  type  of  the  amiable  and  amusing  com- 
panion that  he  has  described  Mercutio.  However,  though 
he  was  not  bold  enough  to  attack,  like  Moliere,  the  ridic- 
ulous absurdities  of  the  court,  he  very  frequently  makes 
it  evident  that  its  tone  was  a  burden  to  him ;  and  the  part 
of  Mercutio  seems  to  have  been  a  great  tax  upon  his  taste 
and  uprightness  of  mind.  Dryden  relates  as  a  tradition 
of  his  time,  that  Shakspeare  used  to  say,  "  that  he  was 
obliged  to  kill  Mercutio  in  the  third  act,  lest  he  should 
have  been  killed  by  him."  Mercutio  has,  nevertheless, 
had  many  zealous  partisans  in  England ;  among  others, 
Johnson,  who,  on  this  occasion,  soundly  rates  Dryden  for  his 
irreverent  words  regarding  the  witty  Mercutio,  "  some  of 
whose  sallies,"  he  says,  "  are  perhaps  out  of  the  reach  of 
Dryden."  Shakspeare's  aversion  for  the  kind  of  wit  of 
which  he  has  been  so  lavish  in  "  Romeo  and  Juliet,"  is 
sufficiently  proved  by  Friar  Laurence's  injunction  to  Ro- 
meo when  he  begins  to  explain  his  position  in  the  sonnet 
style : 

"  Be  plain,  good  son,  and  homely  in  thy  drift ; 
Riddling  confession  finds  but  riddling  shrift." 

Friar  Laurence  is  the  wise  man  of  the  play,  and  his  speech- 
es are,  in  general,  as  simple  as  it  was  allowable  for  those 
of  a  philosopher  to  be  in  his  time. 

The  part  of  Juliet's  nurse  also  contains  but  few  of  these 
subtleties,  which  Shakspeare  seems  to  have  reserved,  in 
this  work,  to  persons  of  the  higher  classes,  and  sometimes 
to  the  valets  who  ape  their  manners.  The  character  of 
the  nurse  is  indicated  in  Arthur  Brooke's  poem ;  in  which, 
however,  it  is  far  from  possessing  the  same  homely  truth- 
fulness as  in  Shakspeare's  drama. 


ROMEO  AND  JULIET.  17? 

Wherever  they  are  not  disfigured  by  conceits,  the  lines 
in  "  Romeo  and  Juliet"  are  perhaps  the  most  graceful  and 
brilliant  that  ever  flowed  from  Shakspeare's  pen.  They 
are,  for  the  most  part,  written  in  rhyme,  another  homage 
paid  to  Italian  habits. 


HAMLET. 

(1596.) 


"Hamlet"  is  not  the  finest  of  Shakspeare's  dramas; 
"  Macbeth,"  and,  I  think,  "  Othello"  also,  are,  on  the  whole, 
superior  to  it :  but  it  perhaps  contains  the  most  remarka- 
ble examples  of  its  author's  most  sublime  beauties,  as  well 
as  of  his  most  glaring  defects.  Never  has  he  unvailed 
with  more  originality,  depth,  and  dramatic  effect  the  in- 
most state  of  a  mighty  soul ;  never,  also,  has  he  yielded 
with  greater  unrestraint  to  the  terrible  or  burlesque  fancies 
of  his  imagination,  and  to  the  abundant  intemperance  that 
is  characteristic  of  a  mind  which  hastens  to  diffuse  its 
ideas  without  any  selection,  and  which  delights  to  render 
them  striking  by  a  strong,  ingenious,  and  unexpected  ex- 
pression, without  caring  to  give  them  a  pure  and  natural 
form. 

According  to  his  custom,  Shakspeare  took  no  trouble  in 
"  Hamlet,"  either  to  invent  or  to  arrange  his  subject.  He 
took  the  facts  as  he  found  them  recorded  in  the  fabulous 
stories  of  the  ancient  history  of  Denmark,  by  Saxo  Grram- 
maticus,  which  wore  transformed  into  tragical  histories 
by  Belleforest,  about  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
and  were  immediately  translated  and  became  popular  in 
England,  not  only  among  the  reading  public,  but  also  on 
the  stage,  for  it  appears  certain  that  six  or  seven  years  be- 


HAMLET.  175 

foro  Shakspeare,  in  1589,  an  English  poet  named  Thomaa 
Kyd  had  already  written  a  tragedy  on  the  subject  of  Ham- 
let. This  is  the  text  of  the  historical  romance  out  of 
which,  as  a  sculptor  chisels  a  statue  from  a  block  of  mar- 
ble, Shakspeare  modeled  his  drama. 

"  Fengon,  having  secretly  assembled  certain  men,  and 
perceiving  himself  strong  enough  to  execute  his  enter- 
prise, Horvendile,  his  brother,  being  at  a  banquet  with  his 
friends,  suddenly  set  upon  him,  where  he  slew  him  as 
traitorously  as  cunningly  he  purged  himself  of  so  detesta- 
ble a  murder  to  his  subjects ;  for  that  before  he  had  any 
violent  or  bloody  hands,  or  once  committed  parricide  upon 
his  brother,  he  had  incestuously  abused  his  wife,  whose 
honor  he  ought  to  have  sought  and  procured,  as  traitor- 
ously he  pursued  and  effected  his  destruction.  *  *  * 

"  Boldened  and  encouraged  by  his  impunity,  Fengon 
ventured  to  couple  himself  in  marriage  with  her  whom 
he  used  as  his  concubine  during  good  Horvendile's  life, 
*  *  *  and  the  unfortunate  and  wicked  woman,  that  had 
received  the  honor  to  be  the  wife  of  one  of  the  valiantest 
and  wisest  princes  of  the  North,  imbased  herself  in  such 
vile  sort  as  to  falsify  her  faith  unto  him,  and,  which  is 
worse,  to  marry  him  that  had  been  the  tyrannous  mur- 
derer of  her  lawful  husband.  *  *  * 

"  Greruth  having  so  much  forgotten  herself,  the  prince 
Hamblet  perceiving  himself  to  be  in  danger  of  his  life,  as 
being  abandoned  of  his  own  mother,  to  beguile  the  tyrant 
in  his  subtleties,  counterfeited  the  madman  with  such 
craft  and  subtle  practices  that  he  made  show  as  if  he  had 
utterly  lost  his  wits ;  and  under  that  vail  he  covered  his 
pretense,  and  defended  his  life  from  the  treasons  and  prac- 
tices of  the  tyrant  his  uncle.  For  every  day  being  in  the 
queen's  palace  (who  as  then  was  more  careful  to  please 


176  SHAKSPEARES  TRAGEDIES 

her  whoremaster,  than  ready  to  revenge  the  cruel  death 
of  her  husband,  or  to  restore  her  son  to  his  inheritance), 
he  rent  and  tore  his  clothes,  wallowing  and  lying  in  the 
dirt  and  mire,  running  through  the  streets  like  a  man  dis- 
traught, not  speaking  one  word,  but  such  as  seemed  to  pro- 
ceed of  madness  and  mere  frenzy  ;  all  his  actions  and  ges- 
tures beincr  no  other  than  the  right  countenances  of  a  man 
wholly  deprived  of  all  reason  and  understanding,  in  such 
sort,  that  as  then  he  seemed  fit  for  nothing  but  to  make 
sport  to  the  pages  and  ruffling  courtiers  that  attended  in 
the  court  of  his  uncle  and  father-in-law.  But  many  times 
he  did  divers  actions  of  great  and  deep  consideration,  and 
often  made  such  and  so  fit  answers,  that  a  wise  man  would 
soon  have  judged  from  what  spirit  so  fine  an  invention 
might  proceed.  *  *  * 

"Hamblet  likewise  had  intelligence  in  what  danger  he 
was  like  to  fall,  if  by  any  means  he  seemed  to  obey,  or 
once  like  the  wanton  toys  and  vicious  provocations  of  the 
gentlewoman  sent  to  him  by  his  uncle  ;  which  much 
abashed  the  prince,  as  then  wholly  being  in  affection  to 
the  lady;  but  by  her  he  was  likewise  informed  of  the 
treason,  as  being  one  that  from  her  infancy  loved  and  fa- 
vored him,  and  would  have  been  exceeding  sorrowful  for 
his  misfortune.  *  *  * 

"  Among  the  friends  of  Fengon,  there  was  one  that, 
above  all  the  rest,  doubted  of  Hamblet's  practices  in  coun- 
terfeiting the  madman.  His  device  to  entrap  Hamblet  in 
his  subtleties  was  thus — that  King  Fengon  should  make 
as  though  he  were  to  go  some  long  voyage  concerning  af- 
fairs of  great  importance,  and  that  in  the  mean  time  Ham- 
blet should  be  shut  up  alone  in  a  chamber  with  his  mother, 
wherein  some  other  should  secretly  be  hidden  behind  the 
hangings,  there  to  stand  and  hear  their  speeches,  and  the 


HAMLET.  177 

somplots  by  them  to  be  taken  concerning  the  accomplish- 
ment of  the  dissembling  fool's  pretense ;  *  *  *  and  withal 
offered  himself  to  be  the  man  that  should  stand  to  hearken 
and  bear  witness  of  Hamblet's  speeches  with  his  mother. 
This  invention  pleased  the  king  exceeding  well.  *  *  * 

"  Meantime,  the  counselor  entered  secretly  into  the 
queen's  chamber,  and  there  hid  himself  behind  the  arras, 
not  long  before  the  queen  and  Hamblet  came  thither,  who, 
being  crafty  and  politic,  as  soon  as  he  was  within  the 
chamber,  doubting  some  treason,  used  his  ordinary  man- 
ner of  dissimulation,  and  began  to  come  like  a  cock,  beat- 
ing with  his  arms  (in  such  manner  as  cocks  use  to  strike 
with  their  wings)  upon  the  hangings  of  the  chamber ; 
whereby,  feeling  something  stirring  under  them,  he  cried, 
"  A  rat !  a  rat !"  and  presently  drawing  his  sword,  thrust 
it  into  the  hangings,  which  done,  he  pulled  the  counselor, 
half  dead,  out  by  the  heels,  and  made  an  end  of  killing 
him.  *  *  *  By  which  means  having  discovered  the  ambush, 
and  given  the  inventor  thereof  his  just  reward,  he  came 
again  to  his  mother,  who  in  the  mean  time  wept  and  tor- 
mented herself;  and  having  once  again  searched  every 
corner  of  the  chamber,  perceiving  himself  to  be  alone  with 
her,  he  began  in  sober  and  discreet  manner  to  speak  unto 
her,  saying, 

"  '"What  treason  is  this,  0  most  infamous  woman  of  all 
that  ever  prostrated  themselves  to  the  will  of  an  abom- 
inable whoremonger,  who,  under  the  vail  of  a  dissembling 
creature,  covereth  the  most  wicked  and  detestable  crime 
that  man  could  ever  imagine  or  was  committed  ?  Now 
may  I  be  assured  to  trust  you,  that  like  a  vile  wanton 
adulteress,  altogether  impudent  and  given  over  to  her  pleas- 
ure, runs  spreading  forth  her  arms  to  embrace  the  traitor- 
ous villainous  tyrant  that  murdered  my  father,  and  most 


178  SHAKSPEARE'S  TRAGEDIES. 

incestuously  receivest  the  villain  into  the  lawful  bed  of 
your  loyal  spouse  ?  *  *  *  0,  Q,ueen  Greruth !  it  is  lioen. 
tiousness  only  that  has  made  you  deface  out  of  your  mind 
the  memory  of  the  valor  and  virtues  of  the  good  king, 
your  husband  and  my  father.  *  *  *  Be  not  offended,  I  pray 
you,  madam,  if,  transported  with  dolor  and  grief,  I  speak 
so  boldly  unto  you,  and  that  I  respect  you  less  than  duty 
requireth ;  for  you,  having  forgotten  me,  and  wholly  re- 
jected the  memory  of  the  deceased  king  my  father,  must 
not  be  ashamed  if  I  also  surpass  the  bounds  and  limits  of 
due  consideration.  *  *  * ' 

"  Although  the  Queen  perceived  herself  nearly  touched, 
and  that  Hamblet  moved  her  to  the  quick,  where  she  felt 
herself  interested,  nevertheless  she  forgot  all  disdain  and 
wrath,  which  thereby  she  might  as  then  have  had,  hear- 
ing herself  so  sharply  chidden  and  reproved,  to  behold  the 
gallant  spirit  of  her  son,  and  to  think  what  she  might  hope, 
and  the  easier  expect  of  his  so  great  policy  and  wisdom. 
But  on  the  one  side,  she  durst  not  lift  up  her  eyes  to  be- 
hold him,  remembering  her  offense,  and  on  the  other  side, 
she  would  gladly  have  embraced  her  son,  in  regard  of  the 
wise  admonitions  by  him  given  unto  her,  which  as  then 
quenched  the  flames  of  unbridled  desire  that  before  had 
moved  her.  *  *  * 

"  After  this,  Fengon  came  to  the  court  again,  and  de- 
termined that  Hamblet  should  be  sent  into  England.  Now 
t-  bear  him  company  were  assigned  two  of  Fengon's  faith- 
fui  ministers,  bearing  letters  engraved  in  wood,  that  con- 
tained Hamblet's  death,  in  such  sort  as  he  had  advertised 
the  King  of  England.  But  the  subtle  Danish  prince,  while 
his  companions  slept,  having  read  the  letters,  and  known 
his  uncle's  great  treason,  with  the  wicked  and  villainous 
minds  of  the  two  courtiers  that  led  him  t©  the  slaughter 


HAMLET.  179 

erased  out  the  letters  that  concerned  his  death,  and  in. 
stead  thereof  graved  others,  with  commission  to  the  King 
of  England  to  hang  his  two  companions.  *  *  .  * 

"  Hamblet,  while  his  father  lived,  had  been  instructed 
in  that  devilish  art,  whereby  the  wicked  spirit  abuseth 
mankind,  and  advertiseth  him  of  things  past.  It  touch- 
eth  not  the  matter  herein  to  discover  whether  this  prince, 
by  reason  of  his  over  great  melancholy,  had  received  those 
impressions,  divining  that  which  never  any  but  himself 
had  before  declared.  *  *  *"* 

It  was  evidently  Hamlet  who,  in  this  narrative,  struck 
and  allured  the  imagination  of  Shakspeare.  This  young 
prince,  mad  from  calculation,  and  perhaps  slightly  mad  by 
nature  ;  cunning  and  melancholy  ;  burning  to  avenge  the 
death  of  his  father,  and  skillful  in  defending  his  own  life  ; 
adored  by  the  young  girl  sent  to  work  his  ruin  ;  an  object 
of  dread,  and  yet  of  tenderness,  to  his  guilty  mother  ;  and, 
until  the  moment  of  throwing  off  the  mask,  hidden  and 
incomprehensible  to  both  :  this  personage,  full  of  passion, 
danger,  and  mystery,  well  versed  in  the  occult  sciences, 
and  whom,  perhaps,  "  by  reason  of  his  over  great  melan- 
choly, the  wicked  spirit  enabled  to  divine  that  which 
never  any  but  himself  had  before  declared  ;"  what  an  ad- 
mirable character  was  this  for  Shakspeare,  that  curious 
and  deep-searching  observer  of  the  secret  agitations  of  the 
human  soul  and  destiny !  Had  he  done  nothing  more  than 
depict,  with  the  bold  outline  and  brilliant  coloring  of  his 
pencil,  this  character  and  situation  as  delineated  in  the 
chronicle,  he  would  assuredly  have  produced  a  master- 
piece. 

But  Shakspeare  did  much  more  than  this :  under  his 

*  See  "  The  Hystorie  of  Hamblet,"  in  Payne  Collier's  "  Shakspeare's 
Library,"  vol,  i.     London,  1843. 


180  SHAKSPEARE'S  TRAGEDIES. 

treatment,  Hamlet's  madness  becomes  something  altogeth* 
er  different  from  the  obstinate  premeditation  or  melancholy 
enthusiasm  of  a  young  prince  of  the  Middle  Ages,  placed 
in  a  dangerous  position,  and  engaged  in  a  dark  design  ;  it 
is  a  grave  moral  condition,  a  great  malady  of  soul  which, 
at  certain  epochs  and  in  certain  states  of  society  and  of 
manners,  diffuses  itself  among  mankind,  frequently  attacks 
the  most  highly  gifted  and  the  noblest  of  our  species,  and 
•dllicts  them  with  a  disturbance  of  mind  which  some- 
times borders  very  closely  upon  madness.     The  world  is 
full  of  evil,  and  of  all  kinds  of  evil.     What  sufferings, 
crimes,  and  fatal,  although  innocent  errors !     What  gen- 
eral and  private  iniquities,  both  strikingly  apparent  and 
utterly  unknown  !     What  merits,  either  stifled  or  neglect- 
ed, become  lost  to  the  public,  and  a  burden  to  their  pos- 
sessors !     What  falsehood,  and'  coldness,  and  levity,  and 
ingratitude,  and  forgetfulness,  abound  in  the  relations  and 
feelings  of  men !     Life  is  so  short,  and  yet  so  agitated — 
sometimes  so  burdensome,  and  sometimes  so  empty !     The 
future  is  so  obscure !  so  much  darkness  at  the  end  of  so 
many  trials  !     In  reference  to  those  who  only  see  this 
phase  of  the  world  and  of  human  destiny,  it  is  easy  to 
understand  why  their  mind  becomes  disturbed,  why  their 
heart  fails  them,  and  why  a  misanthropic  melancholy  be- 
comes an  habitual  feeling  which  plunges  them  by  turns 
into  irritation  or  doubt  —  into  ironical  contempt  or  utter 
prostration. 

This  was  assuredly  not  the  disease  of  the  times  in 
which  the  chronicle  represents  Hamlet  tc  have  lived,  nor 
indeed  of  the  age  in  which  Shakspeare  himself  flourished. 
The  Middle  Ages  and  the  sixteenth  century  were  epochs 
too  active  and  too  rude  to  give  ready  admittance  to  these 
bitter  contemplations  and  unhealthy  developments  of  hu- 


HAMLET.  181 

man  sensibility.  They  belong  much  rather  to  times  of 
luxurious  life,  and  of  moral  excitement  at  once  keen  and 
leisurely,  when  souls  are  roused  from  their  repose,  and  de- 
prived of  every  strong  and  obligatory  occupation.  It  is 
then  that  arise  these  meditative  discontents,  these  partial 
and  irritated  impressions,  this  entire  forgetfulness  of  all 
that  is  good,  this  passionate  susceptibility  to  all  that  is 
evil  in  the  condition  of  man,  and  all  this  pedantic  wrath 
of  man  against  the  laws  and  order  of  the  universe. 

That  painful  uneasiness  and  profound  disturbance  which 
are  introduced  into  the  soul  by  so  gloomy  and  false  an  ap- 
preciation of  things  in  general,  and  of  man  himself — whicl. 
he  never  met  with  in  his  own  time,  or  in  those  times  wif  b 
the  history  of  which  he  was  acquainted — Shakspeare  d  '- 
vined,  and  constructed  from  them  the  figure  and  charac- 
ter of  Hamlet.  Read  once  again  the  four  great  raont- 
logues  in  which  the  Prince  of  Denmark  abandons  himsel  t 
to  the  reflective  expression  of  his  inmost  feelings  ;  gather 
together  from  the  whole  play  the  passages  in  which  he 
casually  gives  them  utterance ;  seek  out  and  sum  up  that 
which  is  manifest,  and  that  which  is  hidden  in  all  that  he 
thinks  and  says,  and  you  will  every  where  recognize  the 
presence  of  the  moral  malady  which  I  have  just  described. 
Therein  truly  resides,  much  more  than  in  his  personal 
griefs  and  perils,  the  source  of  Hamlet's  melancholy ;  in 
this  consists  his  fixed  idea  and  his  madness. 

And  with  the  admirable  good  sense  of  genius,  in  order 
to  render  the  exhibition  of  so  sombre  a  disease  not  only 
endurable,  but  attractive,  Shakspeare  has  endowed  the 
sufferer  himself  with  the  gentlest  and  most  alluring  qual- 
iti3s.  He  has  made  Hamlet  handsome,  popular,  generous, 
affectionate,  and  even  tender.  He  was  desirous  that  the 
instinctive  character  of  his  hero  should  in  some  sort  re 


182  SHAKSPE ARE'S  TRAGEDIES. 

deem  human  nature  from  the  distrust  and  anathemas  with 
which  it  was  laden  by  his  philosophic  melancholy. 

But,  at  the  same  time,  guided  by  that  instinct  of  har- 
mon)  which  never  deserts  the  true  poet,  Shakspeare  has 
diffused  over  the  whole  drama  the  same  gloomy  color 
which  opens  the  scene  ;  the  spectre  of  the  assassinated 
monarch  gives  its  impress  to  the  movement  of  the  drama 
from  its  very  outset,  and  leads  it  onward  to  its  termination, 
and  when  that  term  arrives,  death  reigns  once  more  ;  all 
die,  the  innocent  as  well  as  the  guilty,  the  young  girl  as 
well  as  the  prince,  and  she  more  mad  than  he  is ;  all  de- 
part to  join  the  spectre  who  had  left  the  tomb  only  that 
he  might  drag  them  all  with  him  on  his  return.  The 
whole  circumstance  is  as  mournful  as  Hamlet's  thoughts. 
None  are  left  upon  the  stage  but  the  Norwegian  strangers, 
who  then  appear  for  the  first  time,  and  who  have  previous- 
ly taken  no  part  in  the  action. 

After  this  great  moral  painting  comes  the  second  of 
Shakspeare's  superior  beauties,  dramatic  effect.  This  is 
nowhere  more  complete  and  more  striking  than  in  "  Ham- 
let," for  the  two  conditions  of  great  dramatic  effect  are 
found  in  it,  unity  in  variety — one  sole,  constant,  and  dom- 
inant impression  ;  and  this  impression  varied  according  to 
the  character,  the  turn  of  mind,  and  the  condition  of  the 
different  personages  in  whom  it  is  developed.  Death  hov- 
ers over  the  whole  drama ;  the  spectre  of  the  murdered 
king  represents  and  personifies  it ;  he  is  always  there, 
sometimes  present  himself,  sometimes  present  to  the 
thoughts,  and  in  the  language  of  the  other  personages. 
Whether  great  or  small,  innocent  or  guilty,  interested  or 
indifferent  to  his  history,  they  are  all  constantly  concerned 
about  him  ;  some  with  remorse,  others  with  affection  and 
grief,  others  again  merely  with  curiosity,  and  some  ever 


HAMLET.  183 

without  curiosity ,  and  simply  by  chance :  for  example, 
that  rude  grave-digger,  who  says  that  he  entered  on  his 
trade  on  the  day  on  which  the  late  king  had  gained  a  great 
victory  over  his  neighbor,  the  King  of  Norway,  and  who, 
while  digging  the  grave  of  the  beautiful  Ophelia,  the  mad 
mistress  of  the  madman  Hamlet,  turns  up  the  skull  of 
poor  Yorick,  the  jester  of  the  deceased  monarch — the  skull 
of  the  jester  of  that  spectre,  who  issues  at  every  moment 
from  his  tomb  to  alarm  the  living  and  enforce  the  punish- 
ment of  his  assassin.  All  these  personages,  in  the  midst 
z>f  all  these  circumstances,  are  brought  forward,  with- 
drawn, and  introduced  again  by  turns,  each  with  his  own 
peculiar  physiognomy,  language,  and  impression ;  and  all 
ceaselessly  concur  to  maintain,  diffuse,  and  strengthen  the 
sole,  general  impression  of  death — of  death,  just  or  unjust, 
natural  or  violent,  forgotten  or  lamented,  but  always  pres- 
ent— which  is  the  supreme  law,  and  should  be  the  perma- 
nent thought  of  all  men. 

On  the  stage,  before  a  large  and  mingled  crowd  of  spec- 
tators, the  effect  of  this  drama,  at  once  so  gloomy  and  so 
animated,  is  irresistible ;  the  soul  is  stirred  to  its  lowest 
depths,  at  the  same  time  that  the  imagination  and  senses 
are  occupied  and  carried  away  by  a  continuous  and  rapid 
external  movement.  Herein  is  displayed  the  two-fold  gen- 
ius of  Shakspeare,  equally  inexhaustible  as  a  philosopher 
and  as  a  poet ;  by  turns  a  moralist  and  a  machinist ;  as 
skillful  in  filling  the  stage  with  uproarious  movement,  as 
in  penetrating  and  bringing  to  light  the  inmost  secrets  of 
the  human  heart.  Subjected  to  the  immediate  action  of 
such  a  power,  men  en  masse  require  nothing  beyond  that 
which  it  gives  them ;  it  holds  them  under  its  dominion, 
and  carries  by  assault  their  sympathy  and  their  admira- 
tion.    Fastidious  and  delicate  minds,  which  judge  almost 


184  SHAKSPEARE'S  TRAGEDIES. 

at  the  same  moment  that  they  feel,  and  carry  the  neces 
sity  for  perfection  even  into  their  liveliest  pleasures,  have 
an  immense  taste  and  admiration  for  Shakspeare  also ; 
but  they  are  disagreeably  disturbed  in  their  admiration 
and  enjoyment,  sometimes  by  the  accumulation  and  con- 
fusion of  useless  personages  and  interests,  sometimes  by 
long  and  subtle  developments  of  a  reflection  or  an  idea 
which  it  would  be  proper  for  the  personage  to  indicate  en 
passant,  but  in  which  the  poet  takes  pleasure,  and  so 
pauses  for  his  own  gratification  ;  but  more  frequently  still 
by  that  fantastic  mixture  of  coarseness  and  refinement  of 
language  which  sometimes  imparts  factitious  and  pedan- 
tic forms  even  to  the  truest  feelings,  and  a  barbarou- 
physiognomy  to  the  noblest  inspirations  of  philosophy  or 
poetry.  These  defects  abound  in  "  Hamlet."  I  will  nei- 
ther give  myself  the  painful  satisfaction  of  proving  thia 
assertion,  nor  will  I  omit  to  state  it.  In  point  of  genius, 
Shakspeare  has  perhaps  no  rivals ;  but  in  the  high  and 
pure  regions  of  art,  he  can  not  be  taken  as  a  model. 


KING  LEAR. 

(1605.) 


In  the  year  of  the  world  3105,  say  the  chronicles,  "  at 
what  time  Joas  ruled  in  Judah,  Leir  the  son  of  Baldud 
was  admitted  ruler-  over  the  Britons."  He  was  a  wise 
and  powerful  prince,  who  maintained  his  country  and  sub- 
jects in  a  state  of  great  prosperity,  and  founded  the  town 
of  Caerleir,  now  called  Leicester.  He  had  three  daugh- 
ters, G-onerilla,  Regan,  and  Cordelia,  "  which  daughters 
he  greatly  loved,  but  specially  Cordelia,  the  youngest,  far 
above  the  two  elder."  Having  attained  a  great  age,  and 
becoming  enfeebled  both  in  body  and  mind,  "  he  thought 
to  understand  the  affections  of  his  daughters  toward  him, 
and  prefer  her  whom  he  best  loved  to  the  succession  over 
the  kingdom.  Whereupon  he  first  asked  G-onerilla,  the 
eldest,  how  well  she  loved  him ;  who,  calling  her  gods  to 
record,  protested  that  she  loved  him  more  than  her  own 
life,  which  by  right  and  reason  should  be  most  dear  to 
her.  With  which  answer  the  father,  being  well  pleased, 
turned  to  the  second,  and  demanded  of  her  how  well  she 
loved  him,  who  answered  (confirming  her  sayings  with 
great  oaths)  that  she  loved  him  more  than  tongue  could 
express,  and  far  above  all  other  creatures  of  the  world." 
When  he  put  the  same  question  to  Cordelia,  she  answered, 
"  Knowing  the  great  love  and  fatherly  zeal  that  you  have 


186  SHAKSPE ARE'S  TRAGEDIES. 

ahvays  borne  toward  me  (for  the  which  I  may  not  answei 
you  otherwise  than  I  think,  and  as  my  conscience  leadeth 
me),  I  protest  unto  you  that  I  have  loved  you  ever,  and  will 
continually  (while  I  live)  love  you  as  my  natural  father. 
And  if  you  would  more  understand  of  the  love  that  I  bear 
you,  ascertain  yourself,  that  so  much  as  you  have,  so 
much  you  are  worth,  and  so  much  I  love  you,  and  no 
more."  Her  father,  displeased  with  this  answer,  married 
his  two  eldest  daughters,  one  to  Henninus,  duke  of  Corn- 
wall, and  the  other  to  Maglanus,  duke  of  Albany,  "be- 
twixt whom  he  willed  and  ordained  that  his  land  should 
be  divided  after  his  death,  and  the  one  half  thereof  im- 
mediately should  be  assigned  to  them  in  hand ;  but  for 
the  third  daughter,  Cordelia,  he  reserved  nothing." 

It  happened,  however,  that  Aganippus,  one  of  the  twelve 
kings  who  then  governed  (xaul,  heard  of  the  beauty  and 
merit  of  this  princess,  and  desired  to  have  her  in  marriage. 
He  was  told  that  she  had  no  dowry,  as  every  thing  had 
been  bestowed  on  her  two  sisters  ;  but  Aganippus  persisted 
in  his  request,  obtained  Cordelia's  hand,  and  carried  her 
in  triumph  to  his  kingdom. 

Meanwhile,  Leir's  two  sons-in-law,  beginning  to  think 
he  was  reigning  too  long,  seized  violently  upon  the  land 
which  he  had  reserved  for  himself,  and  assigned  him  only 
a  sufficient  income  to  live  and  maintain  his  rank.  Even 
this  allowance  was  gradually  diminished ;  but  what  caused 
Leir  most  pain  was  the  extreme  unkindness  of  his  daugh- 
ters, who  "  seemed  to  think  that  all  was  too  much  which 
theii  father  had,  the  same  being  never  so  little  ;  insomuch 
that,  going  from  one  to  the  other,  he  was  brought  to  that 
misery  that  scarcely  they  would  allow  him  one  servant  to 
wait  upon  him."  The  old  king,  in  despair,'  fled  from  the 
country,  and  took  refugo  in  Gaul,  where  Cordelia  and  her 


KING  LEAR.  1ST 

husband  received  him  with  great  honors,  and  raised  an 
army  and  equipped  a  fleet  to  restore  him  to  his  possessions 
the  succession  of  which  he  promised  to  bequeath  to  Cor- 
delia, who  accompanied  her  father  and  husband  n  this 
expedition.  The  two  dukes  having  been  slain,  and  their 
armies  defeated,  in  a  battle  fought  with  Aganippus,  Leir 
reascended  his  throne,  and  died  two  years  afterward,  forty 
years  after  his  first  accession.  Cordelia  succeeded  him, 
and  reigned  five  years ;  but  in  the  mean  while,  her  hus- 
band having  died,  her  nephews,  Margan  and  Cunedag, 
rebelled  against  her,  conquered  her,  and  cast  her  into  pris- 
on, where,  "  being  a  woman  of  a  manly  courage,  and  de- 
spairing to  recover  liberty,"  she  committed  suicide.* 

This  story  is  borrowed  by  Holinshed  from  Geoffrey  of 
Monmouth,  who  probably  constructed  the  history  of  Leir 
from  an  anecdote  of  Ina,  king  of  the  Saxons,  and  the  an- 
swer of  the  "  youngest  and  wisest  of  the  daughters"  of 
that  king,  who,  under  circumstances  similar  to  those  in 
which  Cordelia  was  placed,  gave  a  similar  answer  to  her 
father,  that,  although  she  loved,  honored,  and  revered  him 
in  the  highest  degree  that  nature  and  filial  duty  could  re- 
quire, yet  she  thought  it  might  one  day  happen  that  she 
would  more  ardently  love  her  husband,  with  whom,  by 
the  command  of  (rod,  she  was  to  constitute  one  flesh, 
and  for  whom  she  might  leave  father  and  mother.  It 
does  not  appear  that  Ina  disapproved  of  the  "  wise  speech" 
of  his  daughter ;  and  the  sequel  of  Cordelia's  history  is 
probably  a  development  added  by  the  imagination  of  the 
chroniclers  to  this  primary  fact.  However  this  may  be, 
the  anger  and  misfortunes  of  King  Lear  had,  before  Shaks- 
peare's  time,  found  a  place  in  several  poems,  as  well  a3 
formed  the  subject  of  one  drama  and  several  ballads.     In 

*  Holinshed's  Chronicle,  History  of  England,  book  ii..  chapa.  5,  6. 


188  SHAKSPE ARE'S  TRAGEDIES. 

one  of  these  ballads,  mentioned  by  Johnson,  under  the 
title  of  "  A  lamentable  Song  of  the  Death  of  King  Leir 
and  his  three  Daughters,"  Lear,  as  in  the  tragedy,  goes 
mad,  and  Cordelia,  having  been  killed  in  the  battle  gained 
by  the  troops  of  the  King  of  France,  her  father  dies  of 
grief  upon  her  body,  and  her  sisters  are  condemned  to 
death  by  the  judgment  of  the  "  lords  and  nobles  of  the 
kingdom."  Whether  the  ballad  preceded  Shakspeare's 
tragedy  or  not,  it  is  very  probable  that  the  author  of  the 
ballad  and  the  dramatic  poet  derived  their  facts  from  the 
same  source,  and  that  it  was  not  without  some  authority 
that  Shakspeare,  in  his  denouement,  departed  from  the 
chronicles,  which  give  the  victory  to  Cordelia.  This  de- 
nouement was  changed  by  Tate,  and  Cordelia  restored  to 
her  rights.  The  play  remained  on  the  stage  in  this  sec- 
ond form,  to  the  great  satisfaction  of  Johnson,  and,  says 
Mr.  Steevens,  of  "the  upper  gallery."  Addison,  howev- 
er, pronounced  against  this  change. 

As  to  the  episode  of  the  Earl  of  Gloster,  Shakspeare  has 
imitated  it  from  the  adventure  of  a  king  of  Paphlagonia, 
related  in  Sidney's  "Arcadia;"  only,  in  the  original  nar- 
rative, the  bastard  himself  deprives  his  father  of  sight,  and 
reduces  him  to  a  condition  similar  to  that  of  Lear.  Le- 
onatus,  the  legitimate  son,  who,  having  been  condemned 
to  death,  had  been  obliged  to  seek  service  in  a  foreign 
army,  on  learning  the  misfortunes  of  his  father,  leaves  all 
at  the  moment  when  his  merits  were  about  to  gain  him 
a  high  rank,  in  order  to  hasten,  at  the  risk  of  his  life,  to 
share  and  succor  the  misery  of  the  old  king.  The  latter, 
restored  to  his  throne  by  the  aid  of  his  friends,  dies  of  joy 
on  crowning  his  son  Leonatus  ;  and  the  bastard  Plexirtus, 
by  a  feigned  repentance,  succeeds  in  disarming  the  anger 
of  his  brother. 


KING  LEAR.  189 

It  is  evident  that  the  situation  of  King  Lear  and  of  the 
King  of  Paphlagonia,  both  persecuted  by  the  children 
whom  they  preferred,  and  succored  by  the  one  whom  they 
rejected,  struck  Shakspeare  as  fitted  to  enter  into  the  same 
subject,  because  they  belonged  to  the  same  idea.  Those 
who  have  blamed  him  for  having  thus  injured  the  sim- 
plicity of  his  action  have  given  their  opinion  according  to 
their  own  system,  without  taking  the  trouble  to  examine 
that  of  the  author  whom  they  criticised.  Starting  even 
from  the  rules  which  they  are  desirous  to  impose,  we  might 
answer  that  the  love  of  the  two  women  for  Edmund,  which 
serves  to  effect  their  punishment,  and  the  intervention  of 
Edgar  at  this  part  of  the  denouement,  are  sufficient  to  ac- 
quit the  play  of  the  charge  of  duplicity  of  action  ;  for,  pro- 
vided that  all  the  threads  at  last  unite  in  one  knot  which 
it  is  easy  to  seize,  the  simplicity  of  the  progress  of  an  ac- 
tion depends  much  less  upon  the  number  of  the  interests 
and  personages  concerned  in  it  than  upon  the  natural  and 
clearly  visible  play  of  the  springs  which  set  it  in  motion. 
But  further,  we  must  never  forget  that  unity,  in  Shaks- 
peare's  view,  consists  in  one  dominant  idea,  which,  repro- 
ducing itself  under  various  forms,  incessantly  produces, 
continues,  and  redoubles  the  same  impression.  Thus  as, 
in  "  Macbeth,"  the  poet  displays  man  in  conflict  with  the 
passions  of  crime,  so  in  "  King  Lear"  he  depicts  him  in 
conflict  with  misfortune,  the  action  of  which  is  modified 
according  to  the  different  characters  of  the  individuals  who 
experience  it.  The  first  spectacle  which  he  brings  under 
our  notice  is  the  misfortune  of  virtue,  or  of  persecuted  in- 
nocence, as  exemplified  in  Cordelia,  Kent,  and  Edgar. 
Then  comes  the  misfortune  of  those  who,  by  their  passion 
or  blindness,  have  rendered  themselves  the  tools  of  injus- 
tice, namely,  Lear  and  OHoster ;  and  upon  these  the  effort 


190  SHAKSPEARE'S  TRAGEDIES. 

of  compassion  is  directed.  As  for  the  wicked  personages, 
we  do  not  witness  their  sufferings  ;  the  sight  of  their  mis- 
fortune would  he  disturbed  hy  the  rememhrance  of  then 
criminality ;  they  can  have  no  punishment  hut  death/ 

Of  the  five  personages  subjected  to  the  action  of  mis- 
fortune, Cordelia,  a  heavenly  figure,  hovers  almost  invisi- 
ble and  half- vailed  over  the  composition,  which  she  fills 
with  her  presence,  although  she  is  almost  always  absent 
from  it.  She  suffers,  hut  never  complains,  never  defends 
herself :  she  acts,  hut  her  action  is  manifested  only  hy  its 
results ;  serene  regarding  her  own  fate,  reserved  and  re- 
strained even  in  her  most  legitimate  feelings,  she  passes 
and  disappears  like  a  denizen  of  a  hetter  world,  who  has 
traversed  this  world  of  ours  without  experiencing  any  mere 
earthly  emotion. 

Kent  and  Edgar  each  have  a  very  decided  physiognomy ; 
the  first  of  them  is,  like  Cordelia,  a  victim  to  his  duty ; 
the  second  interests  us  at  first  only  hy  his  innocence. 
Having  entered  upon  misfortune  at  the  same  time,  so  to 
speak,  that  he  entered  into  life,  and  equally  new  to  both 
conditions,  Edgar  gradually  develops  his  faculties,  learns 
their  character  at  once,  and  discovers  within  himself,  as 
need  requires,  the  qualities  with  which  he  is  gifted  ;  in 
proportion  as  he  advances,  his  duties,  and  his  difficulties, 
and  his  importance  increase  ;  he  grows  up  and  becomes  a 
man,  but,  at  the  same  time,  he  learns  how  costly  is  this 
growth ;  and  he  finally  discovers,  when  bearing  it  with 
nobleness  and  courage,  the  whole  weight  of  that  burden 
which  he  had  hitherto  borne  almost  with  gayety.  Kent, 
on  the  contrary,  a  wise  and  firm  old  man,  has  known  all 
and  foreseen  all  from  the  very  outset ;  as  soon  as  he  en- 
ters upon  action,  his  march  is  determined  and  his  object 
defined.      He  is  not,  like  Eilgar,  urged  by  necessity  or 


KING  LEAR.  191 

met  by  chance ;  his  will  determines  his  conduct ;  nothing 
can  change  or  disturb  it ;  and  the  aspect  of  the  misfor- 
tune to  which  he  devotes  himself,  scarcely  wrings  from 
him  an  exclamation  of  grief  or  pain. 

Lear  and  Grloster,  in  an  analogous  situation,  receive 
from  it  an  impression  which  corresponds  to  their  different 
characters.  Lear,  impetuous  and  irritable,  spoiled  by  pow- 
er and  by  the  habit  and  need  of  admiration,  rebels  both 
against  his  position  and  against  his  own  conviction ;  he 
can  not  believe  in  what  he  knows ;  his  reason  offers  no  re- 
sistance ;  and  he  becomes  mad.  Grloster,  naturally  weak, 
yields  to  his  misery,  and  is  equally  incapable  of  resistance 
to  his  joy ;  he  dies  on  recognizing  Edgar.  If  Cordelia 
were  alive,  Lear  would  still  find  strength  to  live  ;  but  he 
breaks  down  by  the  effort  of  his  grief. 

Amid  all  this  confusion  of  incidents  and  coarseness  of 
manners,  interest  and  pathos  have  never,  perhaps,  been 
carried  further  than  in  this  tragedy.  The  time  in  which 
Shakspeare  laid  his  action  seems  to  have  emancipated  him 
from  all  conventional  forms ;  and  just  as  he  felt  no  diffi- 
culty in  placing  a  King  of  France,  a  Duke  of  Albany,  and 
a  Duke  of  Cornwall,  eight  hundred  years  before  the  Chris 
tian  era,  so  he  felt  no  necessity  for  connecting  the  language 
and  the  characters  of  his  drama  with  any  determinate  pe- 
riod. The  only  trace  of  intention  which  can  be  remarked 
in  the  general  color  of  the  style  of  the  drama  is  the  vague- 
ness and  uncertainty  of  the  grammatical  constructions, 
which  seem  to  belong  to  a  language  sthl  quite  in  its  in- 
fancy ;  at  the  same  time,  a  considerable  number  of  ex- 
pressions which  bear  a  close  resemblance  to  the  French 
language,  indicate  an  epoch,  if  not  correspondent  with  that 
in  which  King  Lear  is  supposed  to  have  lived,  at  least  far 
anterior  to  that  at  which  Shakspeare  wrote 


MACBETH. 

(1606.) 

In  the  year  1034,  Duncan  succeeded  his  grandfather, 
Malcolm,  on  the  throne  of  Scotland.  He  held  his  right 
of  his  mother,  Beatrice,  the  eldest  daughter  of  Malcolm ; 
the  younger  daughter,  Doada,  was  the  mother  of  Mac- 
beth, who  was  thus  cousin-german  to  Duncan.  The  father 
of  Macbeth  was  Finleg,  thane  of  Grlamis,  mentioned  un- 
der the  name  of  Sinel  in  the  tragedy,  and  in  the  chronicle 
of  Holinshed,  on  the  authority  of  Hector  Boetius,  from 
whom  the  narrative  of  the  events  concerning  Duncan  and 
Macbeth  is  borrowed.  As  Shakspeare  has  followed  Holin- 
shed's  chronicle  with  the  utmost  exactness,  it  becomes 
necessary  to  give  the  facts  as  therein  related ;  and  they 
are,  moreover,  in  themselves  replete  with  interest. 

Macbeth  had  rendered  himself  celebrated  by  his  brav- 
ery, and  "  if  he  had  not  been  somewhat  cruel  of  nature," 
says  the  chronicle,  "  he  might  have  been  thought  most 
worthy  of  the  government  of  a  realm."  Duncan,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  an  unwarlike  prince,  and  carried  his  gen- 
tleness and  kindness  to  excess ;  so  that  if  it  had  been  pos- 
sible to  fuse  the  characters  of  the  two  cousins  together, 
and  to  temper  the  one  by  the  other,  the  people  would  have 
had,  says  the  chronicle,  "  an  excellent  captain,  and  a 
worthy  king." 


MACBETH.  193 

After  some  years  of  peaceful  dominion,  the  weakness 
of  Duncan  having  encouraged  malefactors,  Banquo,  the 
thane  of  Lochaber,  "as  he  gathered  the  finances  due  to 
the  king,"  found  himself  compelled  to  punish  "  somewhat 
sharply"  several  notorious  offenders,  which  occasioned  a 
revolt.  Banquo  was  robbed  of  all  the  money  he  had  col- 
lected, and  "had  much  ado  to  get  away  with  life,  after 
he  had  received  sundry  grievous  wounds."  As  soon  as  he 
had  recovered  of  his  hurts,  he  proceeded  to  court  to  lay 
his  complaints  before  Duncan,  and  at  last  persuaded  the 
king  to  summon  the  rebels  to  appear  before  him  ;  but 
they  slew  the  sergeant-at-arms,  who  had  been  sent  with 
the  royal  mandate,  and  prepared  for  defense,  at  the  insti- 
gation of  Macdowald,  one  of  their  most  important  chief- 
tains, who,  collecting  his  clansmen  and  friends  around 
him,  represented  Duncan  to  them  as  a  "  faint-hearted 
milksop,  more  meet  to  govern  a  set  of  idle  monks  in  some 
cloister,  than  to  have  the  rule  of  such  valiant  and  hardy 
men  of  war  as  the  Scots  were."  The  revolt  spread  par- 
ticularly throughout  the  "Western  Isles,  from  whence  a 
host  of  warriors  came  to  join  Macdowald  at  Lochaber ; 
and  the  hope  of  plunder  attracted  from  Ireland  a  large 
number  of  Kernes  and  Galloglasses,*  ready  to  follow 
Macdowald  whithersoever  it  should  please  him  to  lead 
them.  By  means  of  these  re-enforcements,  Macdowald  de- 
feated the  troops  which  the  king  had  sent  to  oppose  him, 
took  prisoner  their  leader,  Malcolm,  and  beheaded  him 
after  the  battle. 

Duncan,  in  consternation  at  this  news,  assembled  his 
council,  at  which  Macbeth,  after  having  blamed  the  king 
severely  for  his  lenity  and  slackness  in  punishing  the  of- 

*  The  Kernes  were  a  species  of  light  infantry,  and  the  Galloglasses 
U'*\y-armed  foot-soldiers. 

I 


194  SHAKSPEARE'S  TRAGEDIES. 

fenders,  which  had  given  them  time  to  collect  an  army, 
offered  to  undertake  the  conduct  of  the  war  in  concert 
with  Banquo.  His  offer  was  gladly  accepted,  and  the 
mere  report  of  his  approach  with  fresh  troops  struck  such 
terror  into  the  rebels,  that  a  great  number  of  them  secret- 
ly deserted ;  and  Macdowald,  having  tried  to  make  head 
against  Macbeth  with  the  remainder,  was  utterly  routed, 
and  forced  to  fly  to  a  castle  in  which  he  had  placed  his 
wife  and  children ;  but,  despairing  of  being  able  to  hold 
out,  and  fearing  the  cruelties  of  his  opponents,  he  killed 
himself,  after  having  first  put  his  wife  and  children  to 
death.  Macbeth  entered  without  obstacle  into  the  castle, 
the  gates  of  which  had  been  left  open.  He  found  only  the 
body  of  Macdowald  in  the  midst  of  his  murdered  family  ; 
and  the  barbarism  of  that  rude  age  was  revolted  by  the 
fact  that,  unmoved  by  this  tragic  spectacle,  Macbeth  cut 
off  Macdowald's  head,  and  sent  it  to  the  king,  and  hanged 
the  body  upon  a  gallows.  He  made  the  inhabitants  of 
the  isles  purchase  the  pardon  of  their  revolt  at  a  very  high 
price,  which  did  not,  however,  prevent  him  from  putting  to 
execution  all  those  whom  he  could  find  in  Lochaber.  The 
inhabitants  exclaimed  loudly  against  this  violation  of  hia 
pledge,  and  the  reproaches  which  they  heaped  upon  him 
irritated  Macbeth  to  such  a  degree  that  he  was  on  the 
point  of  crossing  over  to  the  isles  with  an  army  to  take 
vengeance  upon  them ;  but  he  was  dissuaded  from  thi? 
project  by  the  counsels  of  his  friends,  and  more  particu- 
larly by  the  presents  with  which  the  islanders  a  second 
time  purchased  their  pardon. 

A  short  time  afterward,  Sweno,  king  of  Norway,  hav- 
ing made  a  descent  upon  Scotland,  Duncan,  to  resist  him, 
placed  himself  at  the  head  of  the  largest  portion  of  his 
army,  and  intrusted  the  rest  to  the  command  of  Macbeth 


MACBETH.  195 

and  Banqno.  Duncan  was  defeated  and  put  to  flight; 
and  he  took  refuge  in  the  castle  of  Perth,  in  which  ho 
was  besieged  by  Sweno.  Duncan,  having  secretly  in- 
formed Macbeth  of  his  intentions,  feigned  a  desire  to  sur- 
render, and  protracted  the  negotiation,  until  at  last,  hav- 
ing learned  that  Macbeth  had  collected  a  sufficient  force, 
he  appointed  a  day  for  giving  up  the  fortress  ;  and,  mean- 
while, he  offered  to  send  the  Norwegians  a  supply  of  pro- 
visions, which  they  accepted  all  the  more  eagerly  because 
they  had  suffered  greatly  from  famine  for  several  days. 
The  bread  and  ale  with  which  he  furnished  them  had  been 
adulterated  with  the  juice  of  an  extremely  narcotic  berry, 
so  that,  having  eaten  and  drank  greedily,  they  fell  into 
"  a  fast  dead  sleep,  that  in  manner  it  was  impossible  to 
awake  them."  Then  Duncan  sent  word  to  Macbeth,  who 
arriving  in  all  haste,  and  entering  without  opposition  into 
the  camp,  massacred  almost  all  the  Norwegians,  most  of 
whom  never  stirred,  while  the  others  were  rendered  so 
dizzy  by  the  effects  of  the  narcotic  that  they  could  make 
no  defense.  A  large  number  of  sailors  from  the  Norwegian 
fleet,  who  had  come  to  share  in  the  abundance  which  pre- 
vailed in  the  camp,  shared  also  in  the  fate  of  their  fellow- 
countrymen  ;  and  Sweno,  who  escaped  with  ten  others 
from  this  butchery,  could  scarcely  find  enough  mariners 
to  man  the  ship  in  which  he  fled  to  Norway.  Those  ves- 
sels which  he  left  behind  were,  three  days  afterward,  so 
tossed  by  an  east  wind,  "  that,  beating  and  rushing  one 
against  another,  they  sank  there,"  at  a  place  called  Drow- 
nelow  Sands,  where  they  lie  "  even  unto  these  days  (1574), 
to  the  great  danger  of  other  such  ships  as  come  on  that 
coast ;  for,  being  covered  with  the  flood  when  the  tido 
cometh,  at  the  ebbing  again  of  the  same  some  parts  of 
them  appear  above  water." 


196  SHAKSPEARE'S  TRAGEDIES. 

Thits  disaster  caused  such  consternation  in  Norway, 
that,  for  many  years  afterward,  no  knights  were  made 
until  they  had  sworn  to  avenge  their  countrymen  who 
had  thus  been  slaughtered  in  Scotland.  Duncan,  in  cel- 
ebration of  his  deliverance,  ordered  solemn  processions  to 
be  made  throughout  the  realm ;  but  while  these  thanks- 
givings were  in  progress,  he  was  informed  of  the  disem- 
barkation of  an  army  of  Danes,  under  the  command  of 
Canute,  king  of  England,  who  had  come  to  avenge  the 
defeat  of  his  brother  Sweno.  Macbeth  and  Banquo  hast- 
ened to  meet  them,  defeated  them  in  a  pitched  battle,  and 
forced  them  to  re-embark,  and  to  pay  a  considerable  sum 
for  permission  to  bury  their  dead  at  St.  Colm's  Inch, 
where,  says  the  chronicle,  "  many  old  sepulchres  are  yet 
to  be  seen  graven  with  the  arms  of  the  Danes." 

Such  are  the  exploits  of  Macbeth  and  Banquo,  of  which 
Shakspeare,  following  Holinshed,  has  made  use  in  his 
tragedy.  A  short  time  afterward,  Macbeth  and  Banquo 
were  traveling  to  Forres,  where  the  king  then  lay,  "  and 
went  sporting  by  the  way  together,  without  other  compa- 
ny save  only  themselves,"  when  they  were  suddenly  ac- 
costed by  three  women  "  in  strange  and  wild  apparel,  re- 
sembling creatures  of  the  elder  world,"  who  saluted  Mac- 
beth precisely  as  it  is  related  in  the  tragedy.  Upon  this, 
Banquo  said,  "  What  manner  of  women  are  you  that 
seem  so  little  favorable  unto  me,  whereas,  to  my  fellow 
here,  besides  high  offices,  ye  assign  also  the  kingdom,  ap- 
pointing forth  nothing  for  me  at  all  ?"  "  Yes,"  saith  the 
first  of  them,  "  we  promise  greater  benefits  unto  thee  than 
unto  him,  for  he  shall  reign,  indeed,  but  with  an  unlucky 
eiyl ;  neither  shall  ho  leave  any  issue  behind  him  to  suc- 
ceed in  his  place  ;  whereas,  contrarily,  thou  indeed  shalt 
not  reign  at  all,  but  of  thee  those  shall  be  born  who  shall 


MACBETH.  197 

govern  the  Scottish  kingdoms  by  long  order  of  continua. 
descent."  Herewith  the  women  immediately  disappeared. 
Soon  afterward,  the  thane  of  Cawdor  having  been  put  to 
death  for  treason,  his  title  was  conferred  upon  Macbeth, 
who  now  began,  as  well  as  Banquo,  to  place  great  faith 
in  the  predictions  of  the  witches,  and  to  devise  means  for 
obtaining  the  crown. 

He  had  a  good  chance  of  succeeding  legitimately  to  the 
throne,  for  Duncan's  sons  were  not  yet  of  age  to  reign, 
and  the  law  of  Scotland  ordained  that,  if  the  kingf  died 
before  his  sons  or  direct  descendants  were  old  enough  to 
undertake  the  management  of  affairs,  the  nearest  relative 
of  the  deceased  king  should  be  elected  in  their  stead.  But 
Duncan  having  appointed  his  son  Malcolm,  while  still 
under  age,  Prince  of  Cumberland  and  successor  to  the 
throne,  Macbeth,  who  saw  his  hopes  destroyed  by  this 
proceeding,  thought  himself  entitled  to  take  revenge  for 
the  injustice  he  had  experienced.  To  this,  moreover,  he 
was  incessantly  stimulated  by  his  wife,  Gruach,  who, 
burning  with  desire  to  bear  the  name  of  queen,  and  be- 
ing, says  Boetius,  "like  all  women,  impatient  of  delay," 
continually  reproached  him  with  his  want  of  courage. 
Macbeth,  therefore,  having  assembled  a  large  number  of 
his  friends  at  Inverness,  or,  as  some  say,  at  Botgosuane, 
communicated  to  them  his  design,  killed  Duncan,  and  re- 
paired with  his  party  to  Scone,  where  ho  obtained  po? 
session  of  the  crown  without  difficulty. 

Holinshed's  chronicle  relates  the  murder  of  Duncan 
without  any  detail.  The  incidents  which  Shakspeare  has 
interwoven  into  his  drama  are  taken  from  another  part 
of  the  same  chronicle  concerning  the  murder  of  Kins 
Duff,  who  had  been  assassinated  more  than  sixty  years 
before  by  a  Scottish  lord  named  Donwald.     The  follow- 


198  SHAKSPEARE'S  TRAGEDIES. 

ing  are  the  circumstances  of  this  murder,  as  related  in  the 
chronicle : 

Duff  had  shown  himself,  from  the  commencement  of 
his  reign,  very  anxious  to  protect  the  people  against  male- 
factors, and  "  idle  persons  who  sought  to  live  only  upon 
other  men's  goods."     He  put  several  to  death,  and  com- 
pelled others  to  withdraw  to  Ireland,  or  else  to  learn 
"  some  manual  occupation  wherewith  to  get  their  living.'' 
Although,  as  it  would  appear,  these  fellows  were  connected 
only  in  a  very  remote  degree  with  the  high  nobility  of 
Scotland,  the  nobles,  says  the  chronicle,  "  were  much  of- 
fended with  this  extreme  rigor,  accounting  it  a  great  dis- 
honor for  such  as  were  descended  of  noble  parentage  to 
be  constrained  to  get  their  living  with  the  labor  of  their 
hands,  which    only  appertained   to    plowmen,  and   such 
others  of  the  base  degree  as  were  born  to  travail  for  the 
maintenance  of  the  nobility,  and  to  serve  at  their  com- 
mandment."    The  king  was  consequently  regarded  by 
them  as  an  enemy  of  the  nobles,  and  unworthy  to  govern 
them,  as  he  was,  they  said,  devoted  solely  to  the  interests 
of  the  people  and  clergy,  who  at  that  time  made  com- 
mon cause  against  the  oppression  of  the  great  lords.     The 
discontent  increased  daily,  and  several  rebellions  arose,  in 
one  of  which  some  young  gentlemen  engaged,  who  were 
relatives  of  Donwald,  the  king's  lieutenant  of  the  castle 
of  Forres.     These  young  men  were  taken  prisoners,  and 
Donwald,  who   until    then    had   faithfully   and  usefully 
served  the  king,  hoped  to  obtain  their  pardon;  but  not 
succeeding  in  his  attempt,  he  was  filled  with  resentment. 
His  wife,  who  was  irritated  against  the  king  from  a  sim- 
ilar cause,  spared  no  efforts  to  increase  his  anger,  and  re- 
minded him  how  easy  it  would  be  to  take  his  revenge 
when   Duff  came,  as   frequently  happened,  to  reside  at 


MACBETH.  1 99 

Forres  without  any  other  guard  than  the  garrison  of  the 
castle,  which  was  entirely  devoted  to  them  ;  and  ' l  she 
showed  him  the  means  wherehy  he  might  soonest  accom- 
plish it." 

Duff  oame  to  Forres  a  short  time  afterward,  and,  on 
the  evening  hefore  his  departure,  when  he  had  gone  to  bed 
after  spending  a  longer  time  than  usual  at  prayers  in  his 
oratory,  Donwald  and  his  wife  sat  down  to  table  with  the 
two  chamberlains,  whose  "  reare-supper  or  collation"  they 
had  carefully  prepared,  and  feasted  them  so  well  that  they 
fell  into  a  lethargic  sleep.  Then  Donwald,  "  though  he 
abhorred  the  act  greatly  in  heart,"  at  the  instigation  of  his 
wife,  summoned  four  of  his  servants  who  were  aware  of 
his  plot,  and  whom  he  had  gained  over  by  presents.  These 
entered  the  king's  chamber,  killed  him,  carried  his  body 
out  of  the  castle  by  a  postern-gate,  and,  placing  it  on  a 
horse  which  they  had  provided  for  the  purpose,  conveyed 
it  to  a  place  about  two  miles  distant  from  the  castle. 
Having  got  some  laborers  to  help  them  to  turn  the  course 
of  a  little  river  that  ran  through  the  fields,  they  dug  a 
deep  hole  in  the  channel  and  buried  the  body  in  it,  "  ram- 
ming it  up  with  stones  and  gravel  so  closely,  that,  setting 
the  water  in  the  right  course  again,  no  man  could  perceive 
that  any  thing  had  been  newly  digged  there.  This  they 
did  by  order  of  Donwald,  that  the  body  should  not  be 
found,  and  by  bleeding,  when  Donwald  was  present,  de- 
clare him  to  be  guilty  of  the  murder."  Donwald,  in  the 
mean  while,  was  careful  to  be  one  of  those  who  kept 
guard,  and  did  not  leave  his  post  during  the  whole  night. 
The  subsequent  circumstances  relative  to  the  murder  of 
the  two  chamberlains  are  exactly  as  Shakspeare  has  rep- 
resented them  in  "  Macbeth  ;"  and  the  same  may  be  said 
of  the  prodigies  which  he  relates,  and  which  took  place 


200  SHAKSPEARE'S  TRAGEDIES. 

at  the  death  of  Duff.  The  sun  did  not  appear  for  six 
months,  until  at  last,  the  murderers  having  been  discov- 
ered and  executed,  it  shone  forth  again  upon  the  earth, 
and  the  fields  became  covered  with  flowers,  "  clean  con- 
trary to  the  time  and  season  of  the  year." 

To  return  to  Macbeth.  The  first  ten  years  of  his  reign 
were  marked  by  a  wise,  equitable,  and  vigorous  govern- 
ment. Several  of  his  laws  have  been  preserved,  of  which 
the  following  are  specimens  : 

"  He  that  attendeth  any  man  to  the  church,  market,  or 
to  any  other  public  assembly,  as  a  retainer,  shall  suffer 
death,  except  he  have  living  at  his  hands,  on  whom  he  so 
attendeth."  The  punishment  of  death  was  also  decreed 
against  all  who  became  sworn  retainers  of  any  other  per- 
son than  the  king. 

"  All  manner  of  lords  and  great  barons  shall  not  con- 
tract matrimony  with  other,  under  pain  of  death,  specially 
if  their  lands  and  rooms  be  near  together." 

"  All  armor  and  weapon  borne  to  other  effect  than  in 
defense  of  the  king  and  realm  in  time  of  wars,  shall  be 
confiscated  to  the  king's  use,  with  all  other  movable  goods 
of  the  party  that  herein  offendeth."  It  was  also  enacted 
that  "  a  horse  kept  by  any  of  the  commons  or  husband- 
men to  any  other  use  than  for  tillage  and  laboring  of  the 
earth  shall  be  forfeited  to  the  king  by  escheat." 

"  Such  as  be  appointed  governors  or  (as  I  may  call 
them)  captains,  that  buy  within  those  limits  where  their 
charges  lie  any  lands  or  possessions,  shall  lose  both  lands 
and  possessions,  and  the  money  which  they  have  paid  fur 
the  same.  And  if  any  of  the  said  captains  or  governors 
marry  their  sons  or  daughters  unto  any  manner  of  person 
that  dwelleth  within  the  bounds  of  their  rooms,  they  shalJ 
lose  their  office  ;  neither  shall  it  be  lawful  for  any  of  their 
sons  or  copartners  to  occupy  the  same  nffine  " 


MACBETH.  201 

"  No  man  shall  sit  as  judge  in  any  temporal  court  with- 
out the  king's  commission  authorizing  him  thereto.  All 
conventions,  offices,  and  acts  of  justice  shall  pass  in  the 
king's  name." 

Other  laws  are  intended  to  assure  the  immunity  of  the 
clergy  and  the  authority  of  the  censures  of  the  Church,  tc 
regulate  the  duties  of  knighthood,  the  succession  of  prop- 
erty, and  so  forth.  Several  of  these  laws,  some  of  which 
are  rather  singular  for  the  time,  were  passed  from  mo- 
tives of  order  and  regularity ;  others  were  destined  to 
maintain  civil  independence  against  the  oppressive  power 
of  the  officers  of  the  crown ;  hut  most  of  them  are  evi- 
dently intended  to  diminish  the  power  of  the  nobles,  and 
to  concentrate  all  authority  in  the  hands  of  the  king.  All 
are  mentioned  by  the  historians  of  the  period  as  wise  and 
beneficent  laws  ;  and  if  Macbeth  had  obtained  the  throne 
by  legitimate  means,  and  had  continued  in  the  ways  of 
justice  as  he  began,  he  might,  says  Holinshed,  "  have 
been  numbered  among  the  most  noble  princes  that  any 
where  had  reigned." 

"  But  this,"  continues  our  chronicle,  "  was  but  a  coun- 
terfeit zeal  of  equity  showed  by  him  against  his  natural 
inclination."  Macbeth  appeared  at  length  in  his  true  col- 
ors, and  the  same  feeling  of  his  position  which  had  led 
him  to  seek  public  favor  by  justice  changed  justice  into 
cruelty  ;  "for  the  prick  of  conscience  caused  him  ever  to 
fear  lest  he  should  be  served  of  the  same  cup  as  he  had 
ministered  to  his  predecessor."  Now  begins  the  Macbeth 
of  the  tragedy.  The  murder  of  Banquo,  executed  in  the 
same  manner  and  for  the  same  reasons  as  those  which 
Shakspeare  ascribes  to  him,  was  followed  by  a  great  num- 
ber of  other  crimes,  so  that  "  at  length  he  found  such 
sweetness  by  putting  his  nobles  thus  to  death,  that  his 


802  SHAKSPEARE'S  TRAGEDIES. 

earnest  thirst  after  blood  in  this  behalf  might  in  no  wise 
be  satisfied."  Certain  wizards,  in  whom  he  placed  great 
trust,  had  warned  him  to  beware  of  Macduff,  whose  pow- 
er, moreover,  gave  him  great  umbrage,  and  he  only  sought 
a  pretext  for  giving  vent  to  his  hatred  of  him.  Macduff, 
informed  of  his  danger,  passed  over  into  England  to  in- 
vite Malcolm,  who  had  taken  refuge  in  that  country,  to 
return  to  claim  his  rights.  Macbeth  became  acquainted 
with  this  plot,  "  for  kings,"  says  the  chronicle,  "  have 
sharp  sight  like  unto  lynx,  and  long  ears  like  unto  Mi- 
das ;"  and  Macbeth  maintained  spies  in  the  houses  of  all 
the  nobles  of  his  realm.  The  flight  of  Macduff,  the  mas- 
sacre of  all  his  family,  and  his  conversation  with  Mal- 
colm, are  all  facts  taken  from  the  chronicle.  Malcolm  at 
first  met- Macduff 's  entreaties  with  objections  based  upon 
his  own  incontinence,  and  Macduff  replied  as  in  Shaks- 
peare,  with  this  addition  only,  "  Make  thyself  king,  and 
I  shall  convey  the  matter  so  wisely  that  thou  shalt  be  so 
satisfied  at  thy  pleasure  in  such  secret  wise  that  no  man 
shall  be  aware  thereof."  The  remainder  of  the  scene  is 
faithfully  imitated  by  the  poet ;  and  all  that  concerns  the 
death  of  Macbeth,  the  predictions  that  had  been  made  to 
him,  and  the  manner  in  which  they  were  at  once  eluded 
and  accomplished,  is  taken  almost  word  for  word  from  the 
chronicle,  in  which  we  see  at  last  how,  "  by  illusion  of 
the  devil,  he  defamed,  with  most  terrible  cruelty,  his 
reign,  which  in  the  beginning  was  very  profitable  to  the 
commonwealth."  Macbeth  had  assassinated  Duncan  in 
the  year  1040,  and  he  was  himself  killed  in  1057,  after  a 
reign  of  seventeen  years.* 

*  Holinshed's  Chronicle,  "History  of  Scotland,"  vol.  i.,  p.  168-176 
The  story  of  the  murder  of  King  Duff  is  contained  in  p.  150,  151.  1". 
was  probably  of  the  facts  furnished  by  Hector  Boetius  to  this  chronicle 


MACBETH.  203 

Such  is  a  general  view  of  the  facts  to  which  Shaks. 
peare  undertook  to  impart  a  soul  and  life.  He  placea 
himself  simply  in  the  midst  of  the  events  and  personages, 
and,  setting  all  these  inanimate  things  in  motion  with  a 
breath,  he  enables  us  to  witness  the  spectacle  of  their  ex- 
istence. Far  from  adding  any  thing  to  the  incidents  fur- 
nished him  by  the  narrative  from  which  he  has  borrowed 
his  subject,  he  omits  many  things ;  he  is  especially  care- 
ful to  lop  off  every  thing  that  might  injure  the  simplicity 
of  his  progress,  and  embarrass  the  action  of  his  person- 
ages ;  and  he  suppresses  every  thing  that  might  prevent 
him  from  fathoming  them  with  a  single  glance,  and  por- 
traying them  with  a  few  bold  touches.  Macbeth,  with 
all  the  crimes  and  great  qualities  ascribed  to  him  by  his 
history,  would  be  too  complicated  a  being ;  it  would  be 
necessary  for  him  to  possess  at  once  too  much  ambition 
and  too  much  virtue  for  one  of  his  dispositions  to  main- 
tain itself  for  any  time  in  presence  of  the  other,  and  too 
cumbrous  machinery  would  be  required  to  make  the  bal- 
ance finally  incline  to  one  or  the  other  side.  Shakspeare's 
Macbeth  is  brilliant  only  by  his  warlike  virtues,  and  es- 
pecially by  his  personal  bravery ;  he  has  only  the  quali- 
ties and  the  defects  of  a  barbarian  ;  brave,  but  not  a  stran- 
ger to  the  fear  of  peril  when  he  believes  in  its  proximity ; 
cruel  and  sensitive  by  fits  and  starts ;  perfidious  through 
his  inconstancy ;  always  ready  to  yield  to  any  temptation 
that  presents  itself,  whether  it  lead  to  crime  or  to  virtue 
— he  displays,  in  his  ambition  as  well  as  in  his  criminali- 
ty, that  character  of  thoughtlessness  and  mobility  which 

that  Buchanan,  when  relating  in  a  mujh  more  summary  manner  the  his- 
tory of  Macbeth,  said,  "  Multa  hie  fa'julose  quidam  nostrorum  a  fingunt ^ 
sed  quia  theatris  aut  Milesiis  fabulis  sunt  aptiora  quam  historise,  ea  omit- 
to." — Return.  Scot.  Hist.,  lib.  vii. 


204  SHAKSPEARE'S  TRAGEDIES. 

belongs  to  an  almost  savage  state  of  civilization.  Hia 
passions  are  imperious,  but  no  series  of  reasonings  and 
projects  determines  and  governs  them ;  they  form  a  lofty 
tree,  but  one  devoid  of  roots,  which  the  least  breeze  may 
shake,  and  the  fall  of  which  is  a  disaster.  Hence  arises 
his  tragic  grandeur  ;  it  resides  in  his  destiny  more  than  in 
his  character.  Macbeth,  if  placed  at  a  greater  distance 
from  the  expectation  of  succession  to  the  throne,  would 
have  remained  virtuous ;  but  his  virtue,  would  have  been 
restless,  for  it  would  have  been  merely  the  fruit  of  cir- 
cumstance. His  crime  becomes  a  punishment  to  him, 
because  it  is  circumstance  which  has  forced  him  to  com- 
mit it ;  this  crime  did  not  proceed  from  the  depths  of 
Macbeth' s  nature,  and  yet  it  clings  to  him,  envelops  him, 
enchains  him,  racks  him  in  every  part,  and  thus  creates 
for  him  a  troubled  and  irremissible  destiny,  in  which  the 
unhappy  victim  vainly  writhes,  doing  nothing  that  does 
not  plunge  him  still  deeper,  and  with  increasing  despair, 
into  the  career  which  is  henceforward  prescribed  to  hin? 
by  his  implacable  persecutor.  Macbeth  is  one  of  those 
characters  marked  out  in  all  superstitions  to  become  the 
prey  and  instrument  of  the  perverse  spirit  who  takes 
pleasure  in  destroying  them,  because  they  have  received 
some  spark  of  the  divine  nature,  and  who,  at  the  same 
time,  meets  with  but  few  difficulties  in  his  task,  for  the 
heavenly  light  darts  but  a  few  fleeting  rays  into  their 
souls,  which  are  obscured  by  storms  at  every  instant. 

Lady  Macbeth  is  just  exactly  the  wife  of  such  a  man, 
the  product  of  the  same  state  of  civilization,  and  of  the 
same  habit  of  passions.  She  adds  to  this,  moreover,  the 
fact  that  she  is  a  woman  without  prudence,  without  gen 
erality  in  her  views,  perceiving  at  once  only  a  single  part 
of  a  single  idea,  and  giving  herself  up  to  it  entirely,  with- 


MACBETH.  20d 

out  ever  admitting  any  thing  that  might  distract  or  dis- 
turb her  attention  from  it.  The  feelings  which  belong  tc 
her  sex  are  not  unknown  to  her ;  she  loves  her  husband, 
knows  the  pleasures  of  a  mother,  and  could  not  kill  Dun- 
can herself,  because  he  resembled  "her  father  as  he  slept ;" 
but  she  aspires  to  be  queen,  and  for  this  cause  Duncan 
must  die ;  she  sees  nothing  in  the  death  of  Duncan  but 
the  pleasure  of  being  queen ;  her  courage  is  easy,  for  she 
does  not  perceive  any  thing  to  make  her  recoil  from  the 
deed.  When  her  passion  is  satisfied  and  the  action  com- 
mitted, then  only  will  the  other  consequences  be  revealed 
to  her  as  a  novelty  of  which  she  previously  had  not  the 
slightest  anticipation.  Those  fears,  and  that  necessity  for 
new  crimes,  which  her  husband  had  foreseen  at  the  out- 
set, she  has  never  thought  of.  She  was  quite  willing  to 
throw  the  crime  upon  the  two  chamberlains,  but  it  was 
not  her  idea  to  kill  them  ;  she  did  not  arrange  the  murder 
of  Banquo,  or  the  massacre  of  Macduff  s  family  ;  she  did 
not  see  so  far  forward  ;  she  had  not  even  divined  the  effect 
which  would  be  produced  upon  her  by  such  a  sight,  when 
she  entered  the  room  in  which  Duncan  lay  dead.  She 
leaves  it  in  agitation,  no  longer  contemning  the  terrors  of 
her  husband,  but  merely  urging  him  not  to  dwell  too  much 
upon  images,  by  which  we  see  that  she  is  beginning  to 
feel  herself  besieged.  The  blow  is  struck,  and  will  reveal 
itself  in  the  admirable  and  terrible  scene  of  her  somnam- 
bulism :  there  we  shall  learn  what  becomes  of  a  character 
apparently  so  immovable,  when  it  is  no  longer  sustained 
by  the  blind  fury  of  passion.  Macbeth  has  become  hard- 
ened in  Crime,  after  having  hesitated  to  commit  it,  be- 
cause he  knew  its  character ;  but  we  shall  see  his  wife, 
succumbing  beneath  the  knowledge  which  she  has  ac- 
quired too  late,  substitute  one  fixed  idea  for  another,  d'u 


206  SHAKSPEARE'S  TRAGEDIES. 

to  deliver  herself  from  its  influence,  and  punish,  by  the 
madness  of  despair,  the  crime  which  she  was  led  to  com- 
mit by  the  madness  of  ambition. 

The  other  personages,  introduced  merely  to  fill  up  this 
great  picture  of  the  progress  and  destiny  of  crime,  have  no 
other  color  than  that  of  the  position  given  them  by  his- 
tory. The  "Witches  are,  indeed,  what  they  should  be,  and 
I  do  not  know  why  it  is  the  custom  to  exclaim  with  dis- 
gust against  this  portion  of  the  representation  of  "  Mac- 
beth." When  we  see  these  vile  creatures  the  arbiters  of 
life  and  death,  of  all  the  chances  and  all  the  interests  of 
humanity,  disposing  of  them  in  accordance  with  the  most 
contemptible  caprices  of  their  odious  nature,  to  the  terror 
which  their  power  inspires  is  added  the  dread  occasioned 
by  their  unreason,  and  the  very  absurdity  of  such  a  spec- 
tacle only  augments  its  effect. 

The  style  of  "  Macbeth"  is  remarkable,  in  its  wild  en- 
ergy, for  a  refinement  which  we  may  indeed  blame,  but 
which  it  would  be  wrong  to  consider  as  contrary  to  truth 
as  it  is  to  naturalness.  Refinement  of  language  is  not  in- 
compatible with  rudeness  of  manners  and  ideas  ;  it  seems 
even  to  be  rather  common  in  times  and  positions  in  which 
general  ideas  are  wanting.  The  mind,  which  can  not  re- 
main idle,  then  attaches  itself  to  the  slightest  verbal  con- 
nections, takes  delight  in  them,  and  makes  a  habit  of 
them,  which  we  meet  with  in  all  analogous  positions. 
Nothing  can  be  more  far-fetched  than  the  spirit  of  the  lit- 
erature of  the  Middle  Ages ;  and  what  we  know  of  the 
speech  of  savages  contains  many  choice  ideas.  Refine- 
ment is  the  characteristic  of  the  wits  of  the  lower  classes  ; 
and  even  the  insults  of  the  common  people  are  sometimes 
composed  with  a  quite  singular  fastidiousness,  as  if,  at 
those  times  when  anger  excites  their  faculties,  their  mind 


MACBETH.  207 

seized  with  greater  facility  and  abundance  upon  relations 
of  this  kind,  the  only  ones  which  it  was  capable  of  at- 
taining. 

It  is  believed  that  "  Macbeth"  was  performed  in  1606 
The  idea  of  writing  a  tragedy  upon  this  subject,  which 
would  necessarily  be  pleasing  to  King  James,  who  had 
just  ascended  the  throne  of  England,  was  probably  sug- 
gested to  Shakspeare  by  a  short  poetical  dialogue,  which 
the  students  of  Oxford,  in  1605,  recited  in  Latin  before 
the  king,  and  in  English  before  the  queen,  who  had  ac- 
companied him  to  that  city.  The  students  were  three  in 
number,  and  probably  spoke  in  turn.  Their  speech  turned 
upon  the  prediction  uttered  to  Banquo  ;  and,  in  allusion 
to  the  triple  salutation  which  Macbeth  had  received,  they 
hailed  James  King  of  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland. 
They  also  hailed  him  King  of  France,  which  destroyed, 
somewhat  gratuitously,  the  virtue  of  the  number  three. 


JULIUS  CiSSAR. 

(1607.) 


Among  those  tragedies  of  Shakspeare  to  which  public 
opinion  has  assigned  a  first  rank,  "  Julius  Csesar"  is  the 
one  of  which  the  commentators  have  spoken  most  coldly. 
Johnson,  the  coldest  of  them  all,  contents  himself  with 
saying:  "  Of  this  tragedy,  many  particular  passages  de- 
serve regard,  and  the  contention  and  reconcilement  of  Bru- 
tus and  Cassius  is  universally  celebrated ;  but  I  have  never 
been  strongly  agitated  in  perusing  it,  and  think  it  some- 
what cold  and  un affecting,  compared  with  some  other  of 
Shakspeare's  plays." 

It  is  to  adopt  an  entirely  false  principle  of  criticism  to 
judge  Shakspeare  by  himself,  and  to  compare  the  impres- 
sions which  he  has  succeeded  in  producing,  in  a  given 
style  and  subject,  with  those  which  he  calls  forth  in  an- 
other style  and  subject ;  as  if  he  possessed  only  a  special 
and  singular  merit,  which  he  was  bound  to  display  on  ev- 
ery occasion,  and  which  constituted  his  sole  title  to  glory. 
His  vast  and  true  genius  must  be  measured  on  a  larger 
scale ;  we  must  compare  Shakspeare  with  nature,  with  the 
world  ;  and  in  every  particular  case,  the  comparison  must 
be  made  between  that  portion  of  the  world  and  of  nature 
which  it  was  his  intention  to  represent,  and  the  picture 
which  he  has  drawn  of  it.     Do  not  expect  from  the  painter 


JI'/LIUS  CAESAR.  209 

of  Brutus  the  same  impressions  and  the  same  effects  as 
from  the  delineator  of  King  Lear,  or  of  Romeo  and  Juliet. 
Shakspeare  penetrates  to  the  inmost  recesses  of  all  subjects, 
and  can  derive  from  each  the  impressions  which  naturally 
flow  from  it,  and  the  distinct  and  original  effects  which  it 
ought  to  produce. 

That,  after  this,  the  spectacle  of  the  soul  of  Brutus 
should  he,  to  Johnson,  less  touching  and  dramatic  than  the 
display  of  any  particular  passion,  or  of  any  particular  po- 
sition in  life,  is  a  result  of  the  personal  inclinations  of  the 
critic,  and  of  the  turn  taken  by  his  ideas  and  feelings. 
"We  can  not  find  in  it  a  general  rule  upon  which  we  may 
found  a  comparison  between  works  of  an  absolutely  differ- 
ent kind.  There  are  minds  so  constituted  that  Corneille 
will  fill  them  with  more  emotions  than  Voltaire,  and  a 
mother  will  feel  her  nature  more  agitated  and  disturbed 
by  Merope  than  by  Zaire.  The  mind  of  Johnson,  more 
strong  and  upright  than  it  was  elevated,  could  understand 
tolerably  well  the  interests  and  passions  which  agitate  the 
middle  resrion  of  life,  but  he  never  could  attain  to  those 
lofty  eminences  in  which  a  truly  stoical  soul  can  exist 
without  effort  or  distraction.  The  age  in  which  Johnson 
lived,  moreover,  was  not  an  age  of  great  devotements  ;  and 
although,  even  at  that  epoch,  the  political  climate  of  En- 
gland preserved  its  literature  in  some  degree  from  that  ef- 
feminate influence  which  had  enervated  our  own,  it  could 
not  entirely  escape  from  that  general  disposition  of  the  na- 
tional mind,  that  sort  of  moral  materialism,  which,  grant- 
ing, as  it  were,  to  the  soul  no  other  life  but  that  which  it 
derives  from  the  contact  of  external  objects,  did  not  sup- 
pose it  possible  for  it  to  be  supplied  with  other  sources  of 
interest  than  the  pathetic,  properly  so  called — the  individ- 
ual sorrows  of  life,  the  anguish  of  the  heart,  and  the  storms 


210  SHAKSPEARE'S  TRAGEDIES. 

of  the  passions.  This  disposition  of  the  eighteenth  century 
was  so  powerful,  that,  when  introducing  the  death  of  Cae- 
sar upon  our  stage,  Voltaire,  who  justly  boasted  that  he 
had  made  a  tragedy  succeed  without  the  aid  of  love,  nev- 
ertheless did  not  think  that  such  a  spectacle  could  dispense 
with  the  pathetic  interest  which  results  from  the  painful 
conflict  of  duty  and  affection.  In  this  great  struggle  of 
the  last  efforts  of  dying  liberty  against  budding  despotism, 
he  sought  out,  and  gave  the  first  place  to,  an  obscure  and 
doubtful  fact,  but  one  which  was  adapted  to  furnish  him 
with  the  kind  of  emotions  of  which  he  stood  in  need  ;  and 
from  the  position,  real  or  fictitious,  of  Brutus  placed  be- 
tween his  father  and  his  country,  Voltaire  has  constructed 
the  basis  and  lifespring  of  his  tragedy. 

Shakspeare's  drama  rests  entirely  upon  the  character  of 
Brutus  ;  and  he  has  even  been  blamed  for  not  having  en- 
titled his  work  "  Marcus  Brutus"  instead  of  "  Julius  Cae- 
sar."/But  if  Brutus  is  the  hero  of  the  play,  the  power  and 
death  of  Caesar  form  its  subject.  VCsesar  alone  occupies 
the  foreground  ;  the  horror  felt  "for  his  power,  and  the  ne- 
cessity of  deliverance  from  it,  fill  the  whole  of  the  first  part 
of  the  drama ;  the  other  half  is  consecrated  to  the  recol- 
lection and  consequences  of  his  death.  It  is,  as  Antony 
says, 

"  Caesar's  spirit  ranging  for  revenge;" 

and,  that  his  sway  may  not  be  lost  sight  of,  it  is  still  his 
spirit  which,  on  the  plains  of  Sardis  and  of  Philippi,  ap- 
pears to  Brutus  as  his  evil  genius. 

The  picture  of  this  great  catastrophe,  however,  fir/ishes 
with  the  death  of  Brutus.  Shakspeare  desired  to  interest 
us  in  the  event  of  his  drama  only  as  it  related  to  Brutus, 
just  as  he  has  presented  Brutus  to  us  only  in  relation  to 


JULIUS  CiESAR.  211 

the  event.  The  fact  which  furnishes  the  subject  of  the 
tragedy,  and  the  character  which  accomplishes  it,  the 
death  of  Caesar  and  the  character  of  Brutus — this  is  the 
union  which  constitutes  Shakspeare's  dramatic  work,  just 
as  the  union  of  soul  and  body  constitutes  life,  both  ele- 
ments being  equally  necessary  to  the  existence  of  the  in- 
dividual. Before  the  death  of  Caesar  was  planned,  the 
play  does  not  begin  ;  after  the  death  of  Brutus,  it  ends. 

It  is,  then,  upon  the  character  of  Brutus,  the  soul  of  his 
drama,  that  Shakspeare  has  stamped  the  impress  of  his 
genius ;  and  it  is  all  the  more  admirable  in  this  picture, 
because,  while  remaining  faithful  to  history,  he  has  made 
it  also  a  work  of  creation,  and  has  presented  Plutarch's 
Brutus  to  us  as  truthfully  and  completely  in  the  scenes 
which  the  poet  has  imagined,  as  in  those  which  the  his- 
torian had  supplied.  That  dreamy  spirit  ever  busied  in 
self-examination,  that  disturbance  of  a  stern  conscience  at 
the  first  indications  of  a  duty  that  is  still  doubtful,  that 
calm  and  resolute  firmness  as  soon  as  the  duty  becomes 
certain,  that  profound  and  almost  painful  sensibility,  ever 
restrained  by  the  rigor  of  the  most  austere  principles,  that 
gentleness  of  soul  which  never  disappears  for  a  single  mo- 
ment amid  the  most  cruel  offices  of  virtue — in  fine,  the 
character  of  Brutus,  as  its  idea  is  present  to  us  all,  proceeds 
animate  and  unchanging  through  the  different  scenes  of 
life  in  which  we  meet  it,  and  in  which  we  can  not  doubt 
that  it  appeared  under  the  very  aspect  with  which  the 
poet  has  clothed  it. 

Perhaps  this  historical  fidelity  may  have  occasioned  the 
coldness  of  Shakspeare's  critics  regarding  the  tragedy  of 
"  Julius  Caesar."  They  could  not  discover  in  it  those 
features  of  almost  wild  originality  which  strike  us  in  the 
works  which  Shakspeare  has  composed  upon  modern  sub- 


212  SHAKSPE ARE'S  TRAGEDIES. 

jects,  foreign  to  the  actual  habits  of  our  life,  as  well  as  to 
the  classical  ideas  upon  which  the  habits  of  our  mind 
nave  been  formed.  The  manners  of  Hotspur  are  certain- 
ly more  original  to  us  than  those  of  Brutus,  and  they  are 
also  more  original  in  themselves.  The  grandeur  of  the 
characters  of  the  Middle  Ages  is  strongly  impressed  with 
originality  ;  the  grandeur  of  the  ancients  arises  with  reg- 
ularity upon  the  basis  of  certain  general  principles,  which 
leave  no  other  sensible  difference  between  individuals  than 
the  difference  of  elevation  to  which  they  attain.  This 
was  felt  by  Shakspeare ;  he  merely  thought  to  enhance 
Brutus,  and  not  to  make  him  singular.  The  other  per- 
sonages, being  placed  in  an  inferior  sphere,  resume  some- 
what of  the  liberty  of  their  individual  character,  because 
they  are  free  from  that  rule  of  perfection  which  duty  im- 
poses upon  Brutus.  The  poet  also  seems  to  play  around 
them  with  less  respect,  and  to  allow  himself  to  ingraft 
upon  them  several  forms  which  belong  to  himself  rather 
than  to  them.  Cassius,  disdainfully  comparing  the  bodi- 
ly strength  of  Csesar  to  his  own,  and  running  through  the 
streets  of  Rome  by  night  in  the  midst  of  the  storm,  to  as- 
suage the  fever  of  dangers  which  devours  him,  bears  much 
greater  resemblance  to  a  comrade  of  Canute  or  of  Harold 
than  to  a  Roman  of  the  time  of  Ceesar ;  but  this  barba- 
rian tint  throws  over  the  irregularities  of  Cassius  an  inter- 
est which  would  not,  perhaps,  arise  with  such  liveliness 
from  the  historical  resemblance.  M.  Schlegel,  whose  opin- 
ions upon  Shakspeare  always  deserve  great  consideration, 
seems  to  me,  however,  to  fall  into  a  slight  error  when  ho 
remarks  that  "  the  poet  has  pointed  out  with  great  nicety 
the  superiority  of  Cassius  over  Brutus  in  independent  vo- 
lition and  discernment  in  judging  of  human  affairs."  T 
think,  on  the  contrary,  that  Shakspeare's  admirable  art 


JULIUS  CAESAR  213 

consists,  in  this  piece,  in  preserving  to  the  principal  per- 
sonage  an  entire  superiority,  even  when  he  is  mistaken, 
and  in  making  this  evident  by  the  very  fact  that  he  falls 
into  error,  and  yet  is  deferred  to,  and  that  the  reason  of  the 
others  yields  with  confidence  to  the  mistake  of  Brutus. 
Brutus  goes  so  far  as  to  do  himself  a  wrong ;  in  his  quar- 
rel with  Cassius,  overcome  for  a  moment  by  terrible  and 
secret  grief,  he  forgets  the  moderation  which  becomes 
him  ;  in  fine,  Brutus  is  wrong  once,  and  yet  Cassius  hum- 
bles himself,  for  Brutus  has  in  fact  continued  greater 
than  he. 

Caesar's  character  may  perhaps  appear  to  us  rather  too 
much  disfigured  by  that  boastfulness  which  is  common  to 
all  barbarous  times  in  which  individual  force,  incessantly 
ealled  upon  to  engage  in  the  most  terrible  struggles,  can 
sustain  itself  only  by  a  lofty  consciousness  of  its  own  pow- 
er, and  even  has  need  to  be  supported  by  the  idea  which 
others  entertain  of  it.  It  was  necessary  to  display  in  Cae- 
sar the  force  which  had  subjugated  the  Romans,  and  the 
pride  which  crushed  them  ;  Shakspeare  had  only  one  po- 
sition in  which  he  could  manifest  this  state  of  the  soul 
of  his  hero ;  and  he,  consequently,  laid  the  color  on  too 
thickly.  Nevertheless,  his  Csesar,  I  confess,  does  not  ap- 
pear to  me  more  false  than  our  own.  Shakspeare  even 
seems  to  me  to  have  better  preserved,  in  the  midst  of  his 
rhodomontades,  those  forms  of  equality  which  the  despot 
of  a  republic  ever  maintains  toward  those  whom  he  op- 
presses. 

The  tone  of  "  Julius  Csesar"  is  more  generally  sustained 
than  that  of  most  of  the  other  tragedies  of  Shakspeare. 
Scarcely,  throughout  the  whole  of  the  part  of  Brutus,  do 
we  meet  with  a  single  vulgar  image  ;  and  the  only  one  at 
all  open  to  the  charge  of  vulgarity  occurs  when  he  gives 


214  SHAKSPEARE'S  TRAGEDIES. 

way  to  anger.  The  visible  care  which  the  poet  has  taken 
to  imitate  the  laconic  language  which  history  attributes 
to  his  hero  has  very  rarely  led  him  into  affectation,  un- 
less perhaps  in  the  speech  of  Brutus  to  the  people,  which 
is  a  model  of  the  scholastic  eloquence  of  the  age  in  which 
the  author  lived.  The  language  of  Cassius,  more  figura. 
tive  because  it  is  more  passionate,  and  distinguished  by  a 
less  simple  loftiness  than  that  of  Brutus,  is  nevertheless 
equally  exempt  from  triviality.  Antony's  harangue  is  a 
model  of  adroitness,  and  of  the  feigned  simplicity  of  a  skill- 
ful tactician  who  is  desirous  to  gain  the  minds  of  a  coarse 
and  changeful  multitude.  Voltaire  blames  Shakspeare, 
at  least  with  severity,  for  having  presented  under  a  comic 
form  the  scene  at  the  feast  of  Lupercal,  the  substance  of 
which,  he  says,  "  is  so  noble  and  interesting."  Voltaire 
sees  here  nothing  but  a  crown  demanded  of  a  free  people 
who  refuse  it ;  but  Caesar  making  himself,  in  presence  of 
the  people,  the  actor  of  a  farce  prepared  for  his  own  ag- 
grandizement, and  in  despair  at  the  applause  bestowed 
on  the  manner  in  which  he  acts  his  part,  was  in  truth,  to 
the  wits  of  Rome,  something  extremely  comic,  which 
could  not  be  presented  to  them  under  any  other  form. 

The  action  of  the  piece  comprises  the  period  from  the 
triumph  of  Caesar,  after  the  victory  gained  over  young 
Pompey,  until  the  death  of  Brutus,  which  gives  it  a  du- 
ration of  nearly  three  years  and  a  half. 

There  is  in  English  another  tragedy  on  "  Julius  Caesar," 
composed  by  Lord  Sterline,  and  known  to  the  public,  as 
it  would  appear,  several  years  before  Shakspeare  composed 
his  drama,  so  that  he  may  have  borrowed  some  ideas  from 
it.  This  tragedy  ends  with  the  death  of  Caesar,  which  (lie 
author  has  thrown  into  the  narrative  form.  A  Doctor 
Richard  Eedes,  celebrated  in  his  time  as  a  tragic  pod. 


JULIUS  CtESAR  215 

had  also  written  a  Latin  play  on  the  same  subject,  which 
was  printed,  it  is  said,  in  1582,  but  which  has  been  lost, 
as  well  as  an  English  play  entitled  "  The  History  of  Cae- 
sar and  Pompey,"  which  was  written  before  the  year  1579. 
In  1607,  a  play  was  printed  in  London  under  the  title  of 
"  The  Tragedie  of  Caesar  and  Pompey,  or  Caesar's  Re- 
venge." This  drama,  which  extends  from  the  battle  of 
Pharsalia  to  that  of  Philippi,  was  performed  at  a  private 
theatre  by  some  students  of  Oxford,  and  it  is  supposed 
that  it  was  printed  in  consequence  of  the  successful  per- 
formance of  Shakspeare's  tragedy,  which  Malone's  chro- 
nology refers  to  the  same  year,  1607. 

"  Julius  Caesar"  was  performed,  as  corrected  by  Dryden 
and  Davenant,  under  the  title  of  "  Julius  Caesar,  with  the 
Death  of  Brutus,"  and  was  printed  in  London  in  1719. 

The  Duke  of  Buckingham  also  remodeled  this  same 
tragedy,  dividing  it  into  two  parts  ;  the  first  under  the 
fitle  of  "  Julius  Caesar,"  with  many  alterations,  a  pro- 
logue, and  a  chorus ;  and  the  second  under  the  title  cf 
"  Marcus  Brutus,"  with  a  prologue  and  two  choruses. 
Both  were  printed  in  1722. 


OTHELLO. 

(1611.) 


"  There  was  once  in  Venice  a  Moor  of  great  merit, 
who,  for  his  personal  courage,  and  the  proofs  he  had  given 
of  his  conduct,  as  well  as  his  vigorous  genius  in  the  affair? 
of  war,  was  held  in  great  esteem  by  the  lords  of  the  re- 
public. It  happened  that  a  virtuous  woman,  of  great 
beauty,  called  Desdemona,  not  drawn  by  female  appetite, 
hut  by  the  virtue  of  the  Moor,  fell  in  love  with  him  ;  and 
he,  subdued  by  the  charms  and  noble  sentiments  of  the 
lady,  became  equally  enamored  of  her.  Their  passion 
was  so  successful  that  they  were  married,  although  her 
relations  did  all  in  their  power  to  make  her  take  another 
husband.  They  lived  together  in  such  peace  and  concord 
while  they  were  at  Venice,  that  there  never  passed  be- 
tween them  either  word  or  action  that  was  not  expressive 
of  affection.  The  Venetians,  resolving  to  change  the  gar- 
rison which  they  maintain  in  Cyprus,  selected  the  Moor 
to  the  command  of  the  troops  which  they  destined  for  that 
island.  Although  he  was  extremely  pleased  with  the  hon- 
or proposed  to  him,  yet  was  his  joy  diminished  when  he 
reflected  on  the  length  and  inconvenience  of  the  voyago. 
His  wife  was  very  much  vexed  at  seeing  the  Moor  dis-» 
turbed  ;  and,  not  knowing  the  reason,  said  to  him  one  day 
at  dinner,  '  How  can  you  be  so  melancholy,  after  having 


OTHELLO.  217 

received  from  the  Senate  so  high  and  so  honorable  a  dis- 
tinction ?'  '  My  love  for  you,  Desdemona,'  replied  th& 
Moor,  '  disturbs  my  enjoyment  of  the  rank  conferred  upon 
me,  since  I  am  now  exposed  to  this  alternative — I  musl 
either  endanger  your  life  by  sea,  or  leave  you  at  Venice 
The  first  will  be  terrible,  as  I  shall  suffer  extremely  from 
every  fatigue  you  undergo,  from  every  danger  that  threat- 
ens you ;  the  second  would  render  me  insupportable  to  my- 
self, as  parting  from  you  would  be  parting  from  my  life.' 
'  Ah  !  husband,'  returned  Desdemona,  '  why  do  you  per- 
plex yourself  with  such  idle  imaginations  ?  I  will  follow 
you  wherever  you  go,  though  it  were  necessary  to  pass 
through  fire  instead  of  only  going  by  water  in  a  safe  and 
well-equipped  vessel.'  The  Moor  then  tenderly  embraced 
his  wife,  saying,  '  May  Heaven  long  preserve  us  in  this 
degree  of  reciprocal  affection  !'  Soon  afterward,  he  went 
on  board  the  galley  with  his  wife,  and  sailed  for  Cyprus 
with  a  favorable  wind. 

"  He  had  in  his  company  an  ensign  of  a  very  amiablo 
outward  appearance,  but  whose  character  was  extremely 
treacherous  and  base.  This  rascal  had  also  conducted  his 
wife  with  him  to  Cyprus,  who  was  a  handsome  and  dis- 
creet woman ;  and,  being  an  Italian,  Desdemona  was  so 
fond  of  her  that  they  passed  the  greatest  part  of  their  time 
together.  In  the  same  company  was  also  a  lieutenant, 
to  whom  the  Moor  was  much  attached.  The  lieutenant 
went  often  to  the  Moor's  house,  and  dined  frequently  with 
him  and  his  wife.  Desdemona,  seeing  that  the  Moor  was 
so  fond  of  him,  showed  him  every  mark  of  attention  and 
civility,  with  which  the  Moor  was  much  pleased.  The 
detestable  ensign,  forgetting  his  duty  to  his  own  wife, 
and  violating  all  the  laws  of  friendship,  honor,  and  grati- 
tude with  which  he  was  bound  to  the  Moor,  fell  passion- 

K 


218  SHAKSPEARE'S  TRAGEDIES. 

ately  in  love  with  Desdemona,  and  sought  by  all  the  pri- 
vate means  in  his  power  to  make  her  conscious  of  his  love. 
But  she  was  sc  entirely  taken  up  with  the  Moor  that  she 
thought  neither  of  hAm  nor  of  any  one  else  ;  and  all  that 
he  did  to  engage  her  affections  produced  not  the  least  ef- 
fect. He  then  took  it  into  his  head  that  this  neglect  arose 
from  her  being  pre-engaged  in  favor  of  the  lieutenant ; 
and  not  only  determined  to  get  rid  of  him,  but  changed 
his  affection  for  her  into  the  most  bitter  hatred.  He 
studied,  besides,  how  he  might  prevent  in  future  the  Moor 
from  living  happily  with  Desdemona,  should  his  passion 
not  be  gratified.  Revolving  in  his  mind  a  variety  of 
methods,  all  impious  and  abominable,  he  at  last  determ- 
ined to  accuse  her  to  the  Moor  of  adultery  with  the  lieuten- 
ant. But  knowing  the  Moor's  great  affection  for  Desde- 
mona, and  his  friendship  for  the  lieutenant,  he  determ- 
ined to  wait  till  time  and  place  afforded  him  a  fit  oppor- 
tunity for  entering  on  his  wicked  design ;  and  it  was  not 
long  before  the  Moor  degraded  the  lieutenant  for  having 
drawn  his  sword  and  wounded  a  soldier  upon  guard.  This 
accident  was  so  painful  to  Desdemona  that  she  often  tried 
to  obtain  for  him  her  husband's  pardon.  In  the  mean 
time,  the  Moor  had  observed  to  the  ensign  that  his  wife 
teased  him  so  much  in  favor  of  the  lieutenant  that  he 
feared  he  should  be  obliged  at  last  to  restore  to  him  his 
commission.  'Perhaps,'  said  the  villain,  'Desdemona  is 
fond  of  his  company.'  'And  why?'  said  the  Moor.  '  Nay,' 
replied  he,  '  I  do  not  choose  to  meddle  between  man  and 
wife  ;  but  if  you  watch  her  properly,  you  will  understand 
me.'  Nor  would  he,  to  the  earnest  entreaties  of  the  Moor, 
afford  any  further  explanation."* 

*  See  Giraldi  Cinthio's  "  Hecatommithi,"  printed   in  Payuo  Collier's 
u  Shakspearc's  Library,"  vol.  ii. 


OTHELLO.  21s 

Tho  novelist  then  goes  on  to  relate  all  the  practices  of 
the  perfidious  ensign  to  convince  Othello  of  Desdemona's 
infidelity.  There  is  not  a  single  detail  in  Shakspeare's 
tragedy  which  does  not  occur  also  in  Cinthio's  novel.  The 
handkerchief  of  Desdemona,  that  precious  .handkerchief 
which  the  Moor  had  inherited  from  his  mother,  and  which 
he  had  given  to  his  wife  during  the  early  days  of  their 
love ;  the  manner  in  which  the  ensign  obtains  possession 
of  it,  and  leads  to  its  discovery  in  the  chamber  of  the  lieu- 
tenant, whom  he  is  desirous  to  ruin  ;  the  Moor's  insistence 
upon  having  this  handkerchief  produced,  and  the  trouble 
into  which  Desdemona  is  thrown  by  its  loss  ;  the  artful 
conversation  of  the  ensign  with  the  lieutenant,  to  which 
the  Moor  listens  at  a  distance,  and  fancies  he  hears  all 
that  he  dreads  ;  the  plot  of  the  duped  Moor  and  the  wretch 
who  is  deceiving  him,  to  assassinate  the  lieutenant ;  tho 
blow  which  the  ensign  strikes  him  from  behind,  and  which 
cuts  off  his  leg;  in  a  word,  all  the  facts,  whether  import- 
ant or  not,  upon  which  the  various  scenes  of  the  play 
successively  rest,  have  been  supplied  to  the  poet  by  the 
novelist,  who  had  doubtless  added  a  great  number  of  em- 
bellishments to  the  historical  tradition  which  he  had  dis- 
covered. The  denouement  alone  is  different ;  in  the  novel, 
the  Moor  and  the  ensign  together  murder  Desdemona  dur- 
ing the  night,  pull  down  the  ceiling  on  the  bed  in  which 
she  slept,  and  say  she  has  been  crushed  by  this  accident. 
The  true  cause  of  her  death  long  remains  unknown.  Ere 
long  the  Moor  conceives  a  dislike  to  the  ensign,  and  dis- 
misses him  from  his  army.  Another  adventure  leads  the 
ensign,  on  his  return  to  Venice,  to  accuse  the  Moor  of  the 
murder  of  his  wife.  The  Moor  is  recalled  to  Venice  and 
put  to  the  torture,  but  he  denies  the  charge ;  he  is  ban- 
ished, and  the  relatives  of  Desdemona  have  him  assassin- 


220  SH.-lKSPEARE'S  TRAGEDIES. 

ated  in  his  exile.  A  new  crime  leads  to  the  arrest  of  the 
ensign,  and  he  dies  racked  with  tortures.  "  The  ensign's 
wife,  who  had  "been  informed  of  the  whole  affair,"  says 
Giraldi  Cinthio,  "  after  his  death,  thus  circumstantially 
related  this  story." 

It  is  clear  that  this  denouement  could  nob  be  brought 
on  the  stage  ;  and  Shakspeare  changed  it  because  it  was 
absolutely  necessary  to  do  so.  In  other  respects,  he  haa 
retained  and  reproduced  every  incident ;  and  not  only  has 
he  omitted  nothing,  but  he  has  added  nothing.  He  seems 
to  have  attached  almost  no  importance  to  the  facts  them 
selves ;  he  took  them  as  he  found  them,  without  giving 
himself  the  trouble  to  invent  the  slightest  addition,  or  to 
alter  the  slightest  incident. 

He  has,  however,  created  the  whole  ;  for,  into  the  facts 
which  he  has  thus  exactly  borrowed  from  another,  he  has 
infused  a  vitality  which  they  did  not  inherently  possess. 
The  narrative  of  Griraldi  Cinthio  is  complete  ;  it  is  deficient 
in  nothing  that  seems  essential  to  the  interest  of  a  recital ; 
situations,  incidents,  progressive  development  of  the  prin- 
cipal event,  external  and  material  construction,  so  to  speak, 
of  a  pathetic  and  singular  adventure — all  these  things  are 
contained  in  it,  ready  for  use ;  and  some  of  the  conversa- 
tions even  are  not  wanting  in  a  natural  and  touching  sim- 
plicity. But  the  genius  which  supplies  the  actors  to  such 
a  scene,  which  creates  individuals,  imparts  to  each  his 
peculiar  figure  and  character,  and  enables  us  to  witness 
their  actions,  to  hear  their  words,  to  anticipate  their 
thoughts,  and  to  enter  into  their  feelings  ;  that  vivifying 
power  which  commands  facts  to  rise,  to  go  onward,  to  dis- 
play themselves  and  to  effect  their  accomplishment ;  that 
creative  breath,  which,  diffusing  itself  over  the  past,  resus- 
citates it,  and  tills  it  in  some  sort  with  a  present  and  iiu 


OTHELLO.  221 

perishable  vitality ;  this  is  what  Shakspeare  alone  pos- 
sessed ;  and  by  means  of  this,  from  a  forgotten  novel,  he 
made  "  Othello." 

All  subsists,  in  fact,  and  yet  all  is  changed.  "We  no 
longer  hear  of  a  Moor,  a  lieutenant,  an  ensign,  and  a  wom- 
an, the  victim  of  jealousy  and  treason.  "We  behold  Othel- 
lo, Cassio,  Iago,  and  Desdemona  real  and  living  beings, 
who  resemble  no  other,  who  present  themselves  in  flesh 
and  bone  before  the  spectator — all  entwined  by  the  bonds 
of  a  common  position,  all  carried  away  by  the  same  event, 
yet  each  having  his  own  personal  nature  and  distinct 
physiognomy,  and  each  co-operating  to  produce  the  gen- 
eral effect  by  ideas,  feelings,  passions,  and  acts  which  are 
peculiar  to  him,  and  result  from  his  individuality.  It  was 
not  the  fact,  it  was  not  the  position  which  struck  the  poet, 
and  from  which  he  sought  to  obtain  all  his  means  of  awak- 
ening interest  and  emotion.  The  position  appeared  to 
him  to  possess  the  conditions  of  a  great  dramatic  scene  ; 
the  fact  struck  him  as  a  suitable  frame-work  into  which 
life  might  be  appropriately  introduced.  Suddenly  he  gave 
birth  to  beings  complete  in  themselves,  animated  and 
tragic,  independently  of  every  particular  position  and  every 
determinate  fact ;  he  brought  them  forth  capable  of  feel- 
ing, and  of  displaying  beneath  our  eyes  all  that  the  spe- 
cial event  in  which  they  were  about  to  take  part  could 
make  human  nature  experience  and  produce  ;  and  he 
lanched  them  forth  into  this  event,  feeling  very  sure  that, 
whatever  circumstances  might  be  furnished  him  by  the 
narrative,  he  would  find  in  them,  as  he  had  made  them, 
a  fruitful  source  of  pathetic  effects  and  of  truth. 

Thus  the  poet  creates,  and  such  is  poetical  genius. 
Events,  and  even  positions,  are  not  what  he  deems  most 
important,  or  what  he  takes  delight  in  inventing ;    his 


222  SHAKSPEARE'S  TRAGEDIES. 

power  aims  at  exercising  itself  otherwise  than  in  search 
ing  after  incidents  of  a  more  or  less  singular  character, 
and  adventures  of  a  more  or  less  touching  nature  ;  it  man- 
ifests itself  by  the  creation  of  man  himself;  and  when  i+ 
creates  man,  it  creates  him  complete,  armed  at  all  points 
as  he  should  he,  to  suffice  for  all  the  vicissitudes  of  life, 
and  to  present  the  aspect  of  reality  in  every  sense  of  the 
word.  Othello  is  something  far  more  than  a  Mind  and 
jealous  husband,  urged  to  commit  murder  by  his  jealousy ; 
this  is  only  his  position  during  the  play,  and  his  character 
goes  far  beyond  his  position.  The  sun-burned  Moor,  with 
ardent  blood,  and  a  keen  and  brutal  imagination,  credu- 
lous by  the  violence  of  his  temperament  as  well  as  by  the 
excess  of  his  passion  ;  the  successful  soldier,  proud  of  his 
fortune  and  his  glory,  respectful  and  submissive  to  the 
power  from  which  he  holds  his  rank,  never  forgetting  the 
duties  of  war  in  the  blandishments  of  love,  and  bitterly 
regretting  the  joys  of  war  when  he  loses  all  the  happiness 
of  love  ;  the  man  whose  life  has  been  harsh  and  agitated, 
for  whom  gentle  and  tender  pleasures  are  something  novel 
which  astonishes  while  it  delights  him,  and  which  does 
not  inspire  him  with  a  feeling  of  security,  although  his 
character  is  full  of  generosity  and  confidence  ;  Othello,  in 
a  word,  delineated,  not  only  in  those  portions  of  himself 
which  have  a  present  and  direct  connection  with  the  acci- 
dental position  in  which  he  is  placed,  but  in  the  whole  ex- 
tent of  his  nature,  and  as  he  has  been  made  by  the  entire 
course  of  his  destiny  ;  this  is  what  Shakspeare  enables  us 
to  see.  In  the  same  manner,  Iago  is  not  merely  an  irri- 
tated enemy  desirous  of  revenge,  or  an  ordinary  rasca! 
anxious  to  destroy  a  happiness  which  he  can  not  contem- 
plate with  satisfaction  ;  he  is  a  cynical  and  reasoning 
wretch,  who  has  made  for  himself  a  philosophy  of  egotism 


OTHELLO.  223 

and  a  science  of  crime ;  who  looks  upon  men  merely  as 
instruments  or  obstacles  to  his  personal  interests  ;  who 
despises  virtue  as  an  absurdity,  and  yet  hates  it  as  an  in- 
jury ;  who  preserves  entire  independence  of  thought,  while 
engaged  in  the  most  servile  conduct ;  and  who,  at  the  very 
moment  when  his  crimes  are  about  to  cost  him  his  life, 
still  enjoys,  with  ferocious  pride,  the  evil  which  he  has 
done,  as  if  it  were  a  proof  of  his  superiority. 

Pass  in  review  all  the  personages  of  the  tragedy,  from 
its  heroes  down  to  the  least  important  characters — Desde- 
mona,  Cassio,  Emilia,  Bianca ;  we  behold  them  appear- 
ing, not  under  vague  aspects,  and  with  those  features  only 
which  correspond  to  their  dramatic  position,  but  with  pre- 
cise and  complete  forms,  and  all  the  elements  which  con- 
stitute personality.  Cassio  is  not  introduced  merely  to  be- 
come the  object  of  Othello's  jealousy,  and  as  a  necessity 
of  the  drama  ;  he  has  his  own  character,  inclinations, 
qualities,  and  defects  ;  and  from  what  he  is  naturally 
flows  the  influence  which  he  exercises  upon  what  occurs 
to  him.  Emilia  is  not  merely  an  attendant  employed  by 
the  poet  as  an  instrument  either  of  the  entanglement  or 
of  the  discovery  of  the  perfidies  which  lead  to  the  catas- 
trophe ;  she  is  the  wife  of  Iago,  whom  she  does  not  love, 
and  whom  she  obeys  because  she  fears  him  ;  but  although 
she  distrusts  him,  she  has  actually  contracted,  in  the  so- 
ciety of  that  man,  somewhat  of  the  immorality  of  his 
mind  ;  nothing  is  pure  either  in  her  thoughts  or  in  her 
words ;  and  yet  she  is  kind-hearted  and  attached  to  her 
mistress,  and  detests  evil  and  deeds  of  darkness.  Bianca 
herself  has  her  own  physiognomy,  entirely  independent  of 
the  little  part  which  she  plays  in  the  action.  Forget  the 
events,  set  aside  the  drama,  and  all  these  personages  will 
continue  real,  animated,  and  distinct ;  they  possess  inner- 


224  SHAKSPEARE'S  TRAGEDIES. 

ent  vitality,  and  their  existence  will  not  disappear  with 
their  position.  In  them  is  displayed  the  creative  power 
of  the  poet,  and  the  facts,  to  him,  are  only  the  stage  upon 
which  he  bids  his  characters  appear. 

Just  as  the  novel  of  Griraldi  Cinthio,  in  Shakspeare's 
hands,  became  "  Othello,"  so,  in  the  hands  of  Voltaire, 
"  Othello"  became  "  Zaire."  I  do  not  wish  to  compare  the 
two  works  ;  such  comparisons  are  almost  always  wain  jeux 
cf  esprit,  which  prove  nothing,  except  the  personal  opinion 
of  the  judge  himself.  Voltaire  also  was  a  man  of  genius ; 
the  best  proof  of  genius  is  the  empire  which  it  wields  over 
men ;  wherever  the  power  of  interesting,  moving,  and 
charming  a  whole  people  is  displayed,  this  fact  alone  an- 
swers every  objection ;  genius  is  there,  whatever  fault  may 
be  found  with  the  dramatic  system  or  the  poet.  But  it  is 
curious  to  observe  the  infinite  variety  of  the  means  by 
which  genius  manifests  itself,  and  how  many  different 
forms  the  same  ground- work  of  positions  and  feelings  may 
receive  from  it. 

Shakspeare  borrowed  facts  from  the  Italian  novelist; 
with  the  exception  of  the  denouement,  he  has  rejected  and 
invented  none.  Now  facts  are  precisely  what  Voltaire  has 
not  borrowed  from  Shakspeare.  The  entire  contexture  of 
the  drama,  the  places,  incidents,  and  springs  of  action,  are 
all  new — all  of  his  own  creation.  That  which  struck  Vol- 
taire, and  which  he  desired  to  reproduce,  was  the  passion, 
the  jealousy — its  blindness  and  violence  ;  the  conflict  of 
love  and  duty,  and  its  tragic  results.  The  whole  power 
of  his  imagination  was  brought  to  bear  upon  the  develop- 
ment of  this  position.  The  fable,  a  free  invention,  was 
constructed  with  this  sole  end  in  view.  Lusignan,  Ne- 
restan,  the  ransom  of  the  prisoners — all  the  circumstances 
are  intended  to  place  Zaire  between  her  love  and  the  faith 


OTHELLO.  225 

of  her  father,  to  explain  the  error  of  Orosmane,  and  thus 
to  lead  to  the  progressive  manifestation  of  the  feelings 
which  the  poet  desired  to  delineate.  He  has  not  impress- 
ed upon  his  personages  an  individual  and  complete  char- 
acter, independent  of  the  circumstances  in  which  they  ap- 
pear. They  exist  only  by  and  for  passion.  Beyond  their 
love  and  their  misfortune,  Orosmane  and  Zaire  have  noth- 
ing to  distinguish  them,  to  give  them  a  physiognomy  pe- 
culiarly their  own,  and  to  make  them  every  where  recog 
nizable.  They  are  not  real  individuals,  in  whom  are  re- 
vealed, in  connection  with  one  of  the  incidents  of  their  life, 
the  particular  characteristics  of  their  nature  and  the  im- 
press of  their  whole  existence.  They  are  in  some  sort  gen- 
eral, and  consequently,  somewhat  vague  beings,  in  whom 
love,  jealousy,  and  misfortune  are  momentarily  personified, 
and  who  interest  less  on  their  own  account,  and  by  rea- 
son of  their  own  character,  than  because  they  then  become 
for  a  time  the  representatives  of  this  portion  of  the  feelings 
and  possible  destinies  of  human  nature. 

From  this  manner  of  conceiving  the  subject,  Voltaire  has 
derived  admirable  beauties.  Grave  defects  and  omissions 
have  also  resulted  from  it.  The  gravest  of  all  is  that  ro- 
mantic tint  which,  as  it  were,  subjects  the  whole  man  to 
love,  and  thus  limits  the  field  of  poetry,  at  the  same  time 
that  it  derogates  from  truth.  I  will  quote  only  one  ex- 
ample of  the  effects  of  this  system  ;  but  it  will  suffice  to 
indicate  all. 

The  Senate  of  Venice  has  just  assured  Othello  of  the 
tranquil  possession  of  Desdemona ;  he  is  happy,  but  he 
must  depart ;  he  must  embark  for  Cyprus,  and  devote  his 
attention  to  the  expedition  confided  to  his  care ;  so  he  says, 

"  Come,  Desdeniona,  I  have  but  an  hour 
Of  love,  of  worldly  matter  and  direction, 
To  spend  with  thee  :   we  must  obey  the  time." 


226  SHAKSPEARE'S  TRAGEDIES. 

These  lines  struck  Voltaire,  and  he  has  imitated  them  ; 
but,  in  imitating  them,  what  does  he  put  into  the  mouth 
of  Orosmane,  when  equally  happy  and  confident?  Just 
the  contrary  of  what  Othello  says  : 

"  Je  vais  donner  une  heure  aux  soins  de  mon  empire, 
Et  le  reste  du  jour  sera  a  Zaire." 

Thus  Orosmane,  the  proud  sultan,  who,  a  moment  be- 
fore, was  speaking  of  war  and  conquest,  expressing  his 
alarm  for  the  fate  of  the  Mussulmans,  and  blaming  the 
sloth  of  his  neighbors,  now  appears  as  neither  sultan  nor 
warrior  ;  he  forgets  all  else,  and  becomes  only  a  lover.  As- 
suredly, Othello  is  not  less  passionate  than  Orosmane,  and 
his  passion  will  be  neither  less  credulous  nor  less  violent ; 
but  he  does  not  abdicate,  in  an  instant,  all  the  interests, 
and  all  the  thoughts,  of  his  past  and  future  life.  Love 
possesses  his  heart  without  invading  his  whole  existence. 
The  passion  of  Orosmane  is  that  of  a  young  man  who  has 
never  done  any  thing,  and  never  had  any  thing  to  do,  and 
who  is  as  yet  ignorant  of  the  necessities  and  labors  of  the 
real  world.  That  of  Othello  takes  root  in  a  more  complete, 
more  experienced,  and  more  serious  character.  I  believe 
it  to  be  less  factitious,  and  in  greater  conformity  to  moral 
probabilities,  as  well  as  to  positive  truth.  But,  however 
this  may  be,  the  difference  between  the  two  systems  is 
fully  revealed  in  this  feature  alone.  In  one  the  passion 
and  the  position  are  all ;  from  them  the  poet  derives  all 
his  means.  In  the  other  he  obtains  his  resources  from 
individual  characters  and  the  whole  of  human  nature ;  pas- 
sion and  a  position  are,  for  him,  only  an  opportunity  for 
bringing  them  on  the  stage  with  greater  energy  and  in- 
terest. 

The  action  which  constitutes  the  subject  of  "  Othello" 
must  be  referred  to  the  year  1570,  the  period  of  the  prin« 


OTHELLO.  227 

eipal  attack  of  the  Turks  on  the  island  of  Cyprus,  then 
under  the  rule  of  the  Venetians.  As  for  the  date  of  the 
composition  of  the  tragedy  itself,  Mr.  Malone  fixes  it  in  the 
year  1611.  Some  critics  doubt  whether  Shakspeare  was 
acquainted  with  the  original  novel  of  Griraldi  Cinthio,  and 
suppose  that  he  only  had  access  to  a  French  imitation  of 
it,  published  at  Paris  in  1584,  by  Gabriel  Chappuys. 
But  the  exactness  with  which  Shakspeare  has  conformed 
to  the  Italian  narrative,  even  in  the  slightest  details,  leads 
me  to  believe  that  he  made  use  of  some  more  literal  En- 
glish translation. 


SHAKSPEARE'S    OTHELLO, 

AND 

DRAMATIC   ART   IN   FRANCE   IN   1830 
BY    THE    DUKE    DE    BROGLIE.* 


It  was  not  in  vain  that  some  far-seeing,  conservative, 
and  especially  wise  spirits  addressed  themselves  to  the  au- 
thorities in  the  year  of  grace  1829  ;  and  not  without  good 
reason  did  they  call  to  their  aid  Caesar  and  his  legions — 
that  is  to  say,  his  excellency  the  Minister  of  the  Interior 
and  the  honorable  gentlemen  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies, 
adjuring  them  to  save  the  sanctuary  of  the  Muses  from 
ruin,  and  to  repulse  the  onward  advance  of  the  barbarians. 
The  danger  was  only  too  real ;  and  this  time,  as  in  times 
gone  by,  as  Caesar  paid  no  regard  to  it,  their  pathetic  com- 
plaints, their  gemitus  Britannorum,  having  been  dissolved 
into  empty  vapor,  behold  now  the  evil  has  become  irre- 
mediable !  The  barbarians  who  knocked  at  the  doors, 
emboldened  by  impunity,  have  forced  their  way  through 
the  first  inclosure  ;  they  have  made  a  breach  in  the  body 
of  the  place  ;  or  rather,  they  have  constrained  the  citadel 
itself  to  capitulate.  The  Theatre  Francais  has  surren- 
dered through  want  of  timely  succor,  because  the  oppor- 
tunity for  infusing  into  it  new  vitality  was  neglected. 
Attila-Shakspeare  has  taken  possession  of  it  with  arms  and 
baggage,  his  banners  are  streaming,  and  the  clang  of  a 
thousand  trumpet-calls  sound  in  wild  confusion.  Alas ' 
*  Reprinted  from  the  "Revue  Franca  so."     January.  1830 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE  229 

poor  poets  of  the  old  school,  what  will  become  of  you  ? 
Naught  remains  hut  that  feeble  souls  should  surrender  at 

O 

discretion,  and  sacrifice  themselves  on  the  altars  of  the 
false  gods,  and  that  true  believers  should  cover  their  faces 
with  their  mantles. 

Banter  apart,  the  revolution  which  has  for  some  time 
been  going  on  in  the  taste  of  the  public  is  a  curious  phe- 
nomenon, and  one  singularly  worthy  of  attention.  Never 
has  a  remarkable  change  been  introduced  in  a  more  start- 
ling mode  and  with  greater  rapidity. 

Scarcely  twenty  years  have  elapsed  since  M.  Nepo- 
mucene  Lemercier  launched,  on  the  stage  of  the  Odeon, 
the  vessel  which  conveyed  Christopher  Columbus  and  his 
genius  from  Spain  to  America.  "We  know  what  was  the 
actual  reception  which  this  attempt  in  the  romantic  style 
met  with.  However,  the  name  of  the  author  commanded 
respect,  and  his  rare  talent  gave  him  at  least  a  right  to 
indulgence.  In  other  respects  he  proved  himself  quite  as 
hardy  and  prudent  as  his  hero  ;  he  had,  before  hazarding 
his  adventure,  neglected  nothing  in  order  to  disarm  the 
prejudices  of  the  pit.  He  only  offered  this  foundling 
child  as  a  caprice  of  his  imagination — an  unimportant 
freak  ;  in  decorating  it,  he  had  not  scrupled  to  profane  the 
consecrated  regulations  of  tragedy,  of  comedy,  yea,  even  of 
melodrama.  His  friends  protested  in  favor  of  his  profound 
regard  for  the  triple  unity  ;  for  the  most  sacred  Aristotelian 
trinity  ;  for  the  canonical  precepts  which  had  been  conse- 
crated in  the  poetic  codes  of  Horace  and  Boileau,  and  il- 
lustrated in  the  learned  glosses  of  Le  Batteux  and  La 
Harpe,  and  in  the  "  Rhetoric  for  Young  Ladies."  Useless 
precautions  '  In  spite  of  the  originality  and  unquestion- 
able beauties  which  he  displayed,  his  unfortunate  "Co- 
lumbus" was  outrageously  and  repeatedly  hissed.     Those 


<30  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

who  ventured  to  do  him  justice  paid  dearly  for  such  au- 
dacity  ;  they  narrowly  escaped  being  torn  to  pieces  by  the 
rest  of  the  spectators,  to  such  an  excessive  height  was  the 
popular  indignation  roused ;  there  were,  if  we  remember 
rightly,  two  who  were  almost  knocked  down  on  the  spot — 
martyrs  to  a  cause  which  had  hardly  sprung  into  life — 
the  John  Huss  and  Jerome  of  Prague,  of  a  doctrine  which 
was  yet  to  have  its  Luther  and  its  Melancthon. 

At  the  present  day,  we  behold  at  our  theatres,  with  the 
greatest  composure,  the  representation  of  pieces  in  which 
a  duration  of  some  twenty,  thirty,  or  forty  years,  as  the 
case  may  be,  is  condensed  into  an  hour  between  eight  and 
nine  o'clock  in  the  evening ;  pieces  in  which,  literally 
speaking,  the  principal  personage, 

"  Enfant  au  premier  acte,  est  baibon  au  dernier;" 

pieces  which  are  not,  in  other  respects,  very  much  entitled 
to  the  indulgence  which  is  thus  shown  to  them.  While 
seated  serenely  upon  our  benches,  we  follow,  without  the 
smallest  compunction,  King  Louis  XL  from  Plessis-les- 
Tours  to  Peronne,  only  regretting  that  this  trifling  cruise 
is  not  for  us  entirely  a  pleasure-voyage. 

Seven  or  eight  years  ago  two  or  three  English  come- 
dians, who  happened  to  be  in  Paris,  formed  the  scheme  of 
giving  us  at  the  Theatre  of  the  Porte  Saint-Martin — the 
Theatre  of  the  "  Femme  a  deux  Maris"  and  of  the  "  Pied 
de  Mouton" — a  specimen  of  their  skill.  Forthwith  a 
great  stir  arose.  The  capture  of  Calais  and  of  Dunkirk 
by  the  troops  of  his  Britannic  majesty  would  not  certainly 
have  excited  a  more  patriotic  wrath.  As  the  guardians  of 
pure  doctrines,  and  the  depositaries  of  wholesome  traditions 
in  all  matters  of  taste,  the  boulevard  public  took  this  mat- 
ter in  hand  with  a  quite  inconceivable  violence,  and.  had 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  231 

it  not  been  for  the  intervention  of  the  police,  Heaven  only 
knows  whether  the  unfortunate  gentlemen  of  the  histri- 
onic art  from  the  other  side  of  the  Channel  would  not  have 
been  stoned. 

Who  could  then  have  foreseen  that,  three  years  later, 
the  lions  of  Covent  Garden  and  Drury  Lane  would  con- 
tinually cross  and  recross  the  Channel  to  minister  to  our 
gratification  ?  that  the  most  brilliant  company  of  Paris 
would  assiduously  throng  the  most  fashionable  of  our  thea- 
tres in  order  to  applaud  them  to  the  echo,  and  to  lavish 
upon  their  system  of  declamation  eulogies  which  (may  we 
venture  to  say  so  ?)  were  perhaps  rather  exaggerated  ? 

Every  one  will  recollect  the  murmurs  which,  on  the  oc- 
casion of  the  first  representation  of  the  "  Cid  d'Andalou- 
sie,"  interrupted  that  charming  scene  in  which  the  hero 
of  the  piece,  sitting  tranquilly  at  the  feet  of  his  beloved — 
without  purpose  for  the  future,  undisturbed  by  present 
cares,  completely  possessed  with  the  idea  of  his  approach- 
ing happiness,  profoundly  forgetful  of  the  world,  of  men, 
and  of  all  things — occupies  her  with  the  fond  recital  of  the 
progress  of  their  mutual  love,  and  recalls  to  her,  in  verses 
full  of  delicacy  and  grace,  the  first  stealthy  indications  of 
their  unspoken  attachment. 

On  this  occasion,  neither  the  talents  of  Talma  nor  those 
of  Mademoiselle  Mars  could  obtain  any  tolerance  from  the 
rigorous  severity  of  the  pit.  The  pit  found  that  a  beauti- 
ful scene  was  an  appendage,  that  it  interfered  with  the 
rapidity  of  the  action ;  in  one  word,  that  it  openly  violated 
the  rule,  Semper  ad  eventum  festina  ;  it  was,  therefore, 
inexorable. 

Enter  into  the  Theatre  Fran-ais  on  the  following  day 
there  you  will  see  Desdemona  devoted  to  death  by  the 
stern  Othello,  yet  half  escaping  from  his  sinister  design* 


^32  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

and  terribly  distorted  misconceptions,  on  the  point  of  cross- 
ino-  the  threshold  of  that  fatal  chamber  which  was  to  be- 
come  her  sepulchre  ;  you  will  see  her,  we  say,  pausing  to 
detach,  piece  by  piece,  in  the  presence  of  the  public,  the 
ornaments  with  which  she  is  decked,  and  to  converse  care- 
lessly with  her  maid  ;  you  will  see  her  interrupt  your  con- 
fidence in  the  reality  of  the  distress  which  is  harrowing 
her,  by  informing  herself  of  the  news  brought  from  Venice 
by  her  young  relative,  the  messenger  of  the  Senate  ;  then, 
all  at  once,  recalling  to  her  memory  the  days  of  her  child- 
hood, you  will  hear  her  murmur,  in  an  under-tone,  an  old 
ballad  no  way  indicating  her  position,  except  by  the  in- 
explicable sadness  which  is  impressed  upon  her.  You  will 
see  her  at  length  terminate  this  conversation  by  gravely 
discussing  the  virtue  and  the  frailty  of  women  ;  by  reprov- 
ing with  a  modest  and  indulgent  dignity  the  fickleness  of 
Emilia,  and  humbly  praying  God  to  watch  over  her,  and 
to  keep  her  ever  pure  and  discreet.  And  you  will  see  the 
public  justly  delighted  with  this  scene,  and  manifesting 
far  more  chagrin  than  impatience  at  its  close. 

It  is  right,  nevertheless,  to  remark  one  thing ;  namely, 
that  this  remarkable  revolution  has  been  accomplished  in 
respect  to  the  taste  of  the  public  rather,  or  at  least  more 
decidedly,  than  with  respect  to  its  doctrines. 

If  a  dramatic  work  be  presented  to  the  public,  con- 
structed according  to  the  new  ideas,  it  is  received  with  a 
degree  of  eagerness — the  public  is  pleased  with  it — it  alone 
suffices  to  put  them  into  good  humor.  The  cup-and-ball 
and  penny-trumpet  playthings  of  the  favorites  of  Henry 
HI ,  more  than  any  kind  of  merit  that  belongs  to  the  piece, 
have  sustained  the  position  of  M.  Dumas's  drama.*  The 
Jelight  of  seeing  Richard  of  England— deformed,  cripplod, 

*   "  Henri  III.  et  sa  Cour." 


SHaKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  233 

and  facetious — has  redeemed  whatever  might  he  deemed 
repulsive  in  the  subject  of  "  Jane  Shore."  '-  Olga"  owes 
its  success  to  the  singular  circumstance  of  its  having  been 
played  by  comic  actors  ;  and  "  Marino  Faliero"  owes  some 
little  of  its  repute  to  the  idea  which  it  suggests  of  a  false 
alliance  between  tragedy  and  melodrama. 

But  to  tolerate,  to  connive,  even  to  look  with  some  sat- 
isfaction, is  not  entirely  to  approve.  Should  any  one  at- 
tempt to  build  too  hastily  on  this  foundation,  if  he  were 
to  rush  to  the  conclusion  that  this  same  public  has  dis- 
tinctly taken  part  in  the  controversy  which  has  divided 
the  literary  "world  for  fifteen  or  twenty  years,  he  would  very 
soon  find  himself  considerably  mistaken  ;  in  fact,  there  is 
often  a  very  great  difference  between  a  man's  actions  and 
his  principles,  and  many  men  who  would  gladly  be  liber- 
tines would  not  dare  openly  to  declare  themselves  free- 
thinkers. Our  public  smiles  at  the  attempts  of  the  inno- 
vators, but  can  not  escape  feeling  a  few  qualms  of  con- 
science ;  it  is  gratified  at  them,  but  it  is  not  quite  suro 
whether  it  has  any  good  right  and  reason  for  its  gratifica- 
tion. Success  and  applause  you  may  obtain  from  them, 
and  that  even  at  a  very  cheap  rate ;  provided,  however, 
that  this  shall  not  be  understood  as  furnishing  any  au- 
thoritative precedent.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  matters  take 
a  more  serious  turn ;  if  you  ask  the  public  to  commit  it- 
self by  a  definite  profession  of  faith,  and  to  give  its  sanc- 
tion, by  any  reflective  and  irrevocable  act,  to  any  dogmas 
of  dramatic  reform,  you  will  be  surprised  at  finding  this 
same  public  infinitely  circumspect. 

We  need  not  go  far  in  search  of  the  proof  of  this  ;  the 
manifestations  which  were  made  at  the  first  representation 
of  the  "  Moor  of  Venice"  were  such  as  to  leave  no  doubts 
on  this  point 


234  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

On  this  occasion,  in  fact,  the  attempt  was  made  with- 
out  disguise.  In  its  reception,  there  was  no  possibility  of 
giving  a  tacit  recognition  of  the  change,  while  refusing, 
under  shallow  pretexts,  to  avow  it.  It  was  no  longer  a 
question  as  to  the  amount  of  encouragement  that  might 
be  bestowed  on  a  young  author ;  there  could  be  no  pre- 
tense of  complacently  shutting  the  eyes  to  this  or  that 
license,  in  consideration  of  the  address  and  caution  shown 
in  the  style  of  its  presentation ;  and  no  motive  for  indul- 
gence could  be  suggested  either  by  the  small  importance 
of  the  work  itself,  or  by  the  more  or  less  fluctuating  con- 
dition of  the  theatre.  No  !  Now  a  real  verdict  had  to  be 
pronounced  ;  either  a  dramatic  system  entirely  opposed  to 
our  own  must  be  inaugurated,  before  gods  and  men,  or  its 
establishment  must  be  defeated ;  either  William  Shaks- 
peare  must  be  received,  or  rejected  as  a  rival  of  the  mas- 
ters of  our  stage. 

This  event  had  been  for  a  long  time  in  preparation ; 
and  the  result  was  awaited  with  some  impatience.  Whilo 
announcing  it  with  the  most  varying  expectations,  the 
majority  of  our  public  journals  agreed  in  declaring  that 
this  would  be  a  memorable  day — a  day  on  which  the  dis- 
pute between  the  classical  and  romantic  schools  would  be 
fought  out  upon  an  open  arena — a  day  which  must  decide 
either  for  the  triumph  or  for  the  failure  of  the  new  doc- 
trines in  literature. 

Alas  for  the  feebleness  of  human  foresight !  This  so 
decisive  day  has  passed,  and,  on  the  whole,  we  remain  in 
very  nearly  the  same  position  as  before.  The  work  of  the 
great  British  tragedian  was  saluted  with  a  thunder  of  ap- 
plause ;  this  intelligence  was  communicated  by  these  same 
journals,  but  they  also  informed  us  that  the  thunder  of 
applause  proceeded  almost  exclusively  from  a  small  group 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  235 

of  passionate  admirers,  who  had  come  with  the  set  purpose 
of  going  into  ecstasies  at  every  point,  comma,  or  interjec- 
tion, and  of  bestowing  with  profuse  liberality  the  epithets 
of  idiot,  imbecile,  and  dolt  upon  every  one  who  might 
seem  to  hesitate.  On  the  other  hand,  sufficiently  audible 
hisses  broke  out  in  different  places ;  but  it  appeared  that 
these  hisses  proceeded  not  less  exclusively  from  another 
small  group,  quite  as  insignificant  as  the  other,  of  embit- 
tered detractors,  resolved  to  consider  every  thing  detesta- 
ble, and  to  repay  with  equal  liberality  the  vituperative 
epithets  hurled  at  them  by  their  adversaries.  Between 
tnese  two  factions,  the  body  of  the  audience  in  the  pit  ap- 
pears to  have  preserved  a  reasonable  neutrality.  They 
were  evidently  on  their  guard,  fearing  lest  their  consecra- 
ted maxims  should  be  violated,  and  they  be  led  into  some 
hasty  demonstrations  of  feeling ;  and  yet  they  were  sensi- 
ble, profoundly  sensible,  of  the  great  beauties  of  the  piece. 
Accordingly,  during  the  whole  course  of  the  representa- 
tion, they  appeared  constantly  curious,  astonished,  moved, 
indulgent,  submitting  with  good  grace  to  the  boldest  de- 
partures from  received  rules ;  they  willingly,  though  with- 
out warmth  or  violence,  joined  in  the  attempt  to  silence 
the  detractors ;  and  they  good-naturedly  allowed  free  scope 
to  the  enthusiasts,  while  taking  great  care  not  to  enlist 
themselves  on  their  side,  or  to  mingle  in  their  transports. 
Thus,  then,  their  hearts  were  gained,  but  their  minds 
remained  still  undecided ;  the  difficulty  with  our  reform- 
ers is  not  in  obtaining  a  hearing  ;  it  is  in  procuring  an 
open  recognition  even  from  those  who  give  them  their  best 
possible  wishes.  They  are  in  the  same  position  as  that 
which  the  negroes  of  Saint  Domingo  occupied  during 
twenty  years ;  the  public  refuses,  or  at  least  hesitates,  to 
recognize  them.     vBut  with  patience  they  will  ultimately 


236  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

attain  their  end ;  when  once,  in  a  revolution,  power  has 
been  decidedly  gained,  right  is  never  long  withheld  ;  they 
have  triumphed  over  unreasonable  habits  and  prejudices, 
and  over  involuntary  opposition ;  this  was  the  most  intri- 
cate part  of  their  work ;  theories,  especially  those  which 
are  a  little  superannuated,  have  not  so  lingering  an  exist- 
ence. 

Such,  then,  being  the  state  of  things — the  progress  of 
the  spirit  of  innovation  becoming  every  day  increasingly 
manifest — it  remains  that  we  should  inquire  into  the 
cause  of  this,  and  ask  whether  the  change  is  for  the  bet- 
ter or  for  the  worse — whether  the  spirit  of  innovation  is, 
this  time,  a  spirit  of  light  or  a  spirit  of  darkness  ! 

A  spirit  of  darkness,  it  is  exclaimed,  from  one  quarter 
— a  veritable  child  of  perdition  ! 

Consult,  for  instance,  many  of  our  men  of  taste  ;  enter, 
if  admission  is  allowed  to  you,  into  one  of  their  assem- 
blies ;  and  there,  at  first,  you  will  hear  much  noise  abou+ 
the  confusion  of  species,  the  neglect  of  rules,  the  forget- 
fulness  of  sound  doctrines,  and  the  contempt  for  true 
models ;  afterward,  however  little  you  may  feel  at  ease  in 
this  select  committee,  you  will  speedily  learn  the  parties 
to  whom  all  this  disorder  is  attributed.  The  author  of 
"  L'Allemagne,"  the  writer  of  the  "  Grenie  du  Christian- 
isme,"  the  translator  of  "  Wallenstein,"  the  two  Schlegels, 
besides  many  others,  are  the  guilty  individuals ;  their  heads 
have  been  turned,  and  so  they  have  turned  the  heads  of 
their  fellows.  M.  De  Stendhal  takes  his  share  in  these 
anathemas  ;  the  "  Grlobe"  has  its  allotment.  Not  even  M. 
Ladvocat,  the  publisher  of  the  "  Theatre  Etranger,"  has 
escaped  from  them.  More  than  one  sage  poet,  whether 
in  the  tragic  or  comic  line,  will  inform  you  of  this  with  all 
the  seriousness  in  the  world.     If  no  one*  had  ever  taken  it 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  237 

into  his  head  to  translate  by  the  yard  the  monstrous  pro- 
ductions of  the  countries  situated  beyond  the  Rhine,  the 
Channel,  or  the  Pyrenees  ;  if  he  had  not  afterward  taken 
pains  to  publish  them  on  fine  paper  and  in  elegant  type, 
all  with  a  huge  parade  of  advertisements  and  placards, 
we  should  not  have  been  brought  into  our  present  con- 
dition. 

"Well  said  this,  undoubtedly,  and  still  better  reasoned  ! 

The  innocence  of  this  unsuspecting  public  has  been 
wantonly  abused.  The  Parisian  folk,  like  the  Pnyxian 
people  in  the  "Knights"  of  Aristophanes,  are  poor  fools 
who  allow  themselves  to  be  misled  and  duped  by  evil 
counsels. 

If  we  diligently  make  all  possible  inquiries,  we  shall 
also  find,  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Seine,  a  number  of  sa- 
loons, in  which  are  gathered  every  evening  a  company  of 
worthy  souls,  who  lament,  with  the  truest  sincerity,  over 
the  corruption  of  our  manners.  Hearing  them,  we  might 
suspect  that  fire  from  heaven  must  fall  upon  us  sooner  or 
later  ;  our  wretched  country  is  in  a  worse  pass  than  even 
Sodom  and  Gomorrah ;  the  French  Revolution  has  fatally 
corrupted  the  very  core  of  our  hearts  ;  and  whom  have  we 
to  thank  for  this  accursed  revolution  ?  The  Encyclope- 
dists, M.  Turgot  and  his  reforms,  the  publication  of  M. 
Necker's  Compte-Rendu,  the — who  knows  what  ?  perhaps 
the  substitution  of  waistcoats  for  vests,  and  the  introduc- 
tion of  cabs ! 

The  two  arguments  are  equally  forcible.  To  throw  fire 
and  flames  at  the  corruption  of  manners,  and  to  raise 
loud  cries  about  the  decay  of  taste,  to  attribute  it  either 
to  this  or  that  event,  to  accuse  these  or  those  writers — one 
is,  in  truth,  worth  about  as  much  as  the  other  ;  the  justice, 
good  sense,  and  discernment  are  equal  in  either  case. 


238  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

May  we  not,  in  fact,  say  that  the  general  sentiments  of 
the  masses,  their  habitual  dispositions,  and  the  ideas  which 
rule  them,  are  things  which  attach  themselves  to  nothing, 
and  which  totter  when  they  are  but  touched  with  the  fin- 
ger's end  ?  May  we  not  say  that  these  are  at  the  mercy 
of  any  fortuitous  circumstances — things  to  be  disposed  of 
at  pleasure  by  any  half  dozen  volumes  ? 

The  influence  of  great  men  is,  indeed,  vast ;  we  can  not 
forget  it — we  would  thank  Heaven  that  it  is  so.  And  this 
influence  is  especially  striking  at  epochs  in  which  any 
important  change  is  accomplished  in  government,  laws, 
manners,  or  national  taste ;  nothing,  assuredly,  is  more 
natural  than  this — nothing  can  be  more  just  and  salutary. 
But  whence  do  great  men  derive  this  unquestionable  as- 
cendency ? 

They  belong  to  their  time — in  this  fact  is  the  mystery 
explained ;  they  respond  to  its  instincts,  they  anticipate 
its  tendencies  ;  the  appeal  which  is  addressed  to  all  indis- 
criminately, they  are  the  first  to  hear.  That  which  to 
others  is  as  yet  only  an  indistinct  longing,  has  disclosed 
its  secret  to  them.  Superior  as  they  are,  they  march  at 
the  head,  unfolding  their  wings  to  every  breeze  that  rises, 
clearing  the  path,  removing  obstacles,  and  revealing  to  the 
astonished  masses  the  luminous  truths  and  the  eternal 
laws  which  occasion  their  confused  desires  and  their  latest 
fancies.  Herein,  and  herein  only,  resides  all  their  power  : 
this  is  ihe  condition  of  their  success. 

The  philosophers  of  the  last  century,  then,  were  not  the 
efficient,  causes  of  the  great  and  glorious  movement  of 
1789  :  such  honor  is  not  theirs.  The  general  causes 
which,  during  a  long  course  of  years,  prepared  for  1789, 
these  same  causes  in  their  early  infancy  gave  birth  to  the 
philosophers  of  the  last  century. 


SHAKSPEAKE  IN  FRANCE.  239 

And  neither  are  the  great  writers  of  the  present  day  the 
men  who  have  transformed  the  taste  of  the  public ;  we 
would  rather  say  that  the  general  causes,  which  were  des- 
tined to  produce  this  metamorphosis,  excited  and  inspired, 
when  the  proper  moment  arrived,  the  great  writers  of  our 
time. 

What,  then,  were  the  causes  of  the  French  Revolution  ? 

This,  certainly,  is  neither  the  time  nor  the  place  to  make 
such  an  inquiry ;  but  every  man  of  good  sense  and  true 
wisdom  will  unhesitatingly  allow  that  the  causes  for  such 
an  event  must  have  been,  and  in  fact  were,  very  numer- 
ous, very  profound,  and  very  diversified ;  that  they  were 
active  and  potent  causes — causes  which,  by  reason  of  theii 
number,  their  depth,  and  their  diversity,  were  beyond  all 
external  control,  and  against  which  it  were  puerile  to  en- 
tertain any  spite,  and  absurd  to  attempt  any  revolt. 

And,  perchance,  no  other  than  these  same  causes  have 
now  changed  the  face  of  our  literature — perchance  these 
same  causes  have  now  renovated  the  theatre,  after  having 
reformed,  and  precisely  because  they  have  reformed  the 
spectators.  If  so,  need  we  feel  surprise  ?  is  there  any  thing 
very  extraordinary  in  this  ?  "Would  it  not  argue  a  ridic- 
ulous puerility  to  take  offense  at  such  a  circumstance,  and 
angrily  to  hurl  stones  at  it  ? 

Indeed,  every  thing  depends  upon  the  state  of  all  other 
things  ;  the  human  mind  is  one  single  fabric.  The  differ- 
ent faculties,  which  in  their  union  constitute  the  entire 
man,  aid  and  appeal  to  one  another  continually.  Rarely 
do  they  march  in  a  regular  and  parallel  advance ;  but  as 
soon  as  any  one  of  them  has  gained  decidedly  upon  the 
others,  the  others  hasten  to  overtake  it. 

During  two  centuries,  the  French  people  offered  a  sin- 
gular spectacle  to  the  world  ;  for  that  time  it  moved  in  the 


240  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

foremost  ranks  of  European  civilization,  that  is  to  say,  so 
far  as  it  was  intrinsically  worthy  of  occupying  such  a  po- 
sition ;  but  to  any  one  who  takes  merely  a  superficial 
glance,  it  might  appear  almost  to  have  solved  the  problem 
of  being  at  once  the  most  frivolous  and  the  most  serious 
of  all  peoples — the  most  frivolous  in  important  matters, 
the  most  flippant  in  all  that  affects  the  great  interests  of 
society  and  humanity,  and  the  most  grave,  the  most  pe- 
dantic in  puerilities  and  trifles.  It  was,  by  a  hierarchical 
division,  separated  into  classes,  but  this  classification  no 
longer  corresponded  to  any  thing  that  was  useful  or  even 
real ;  it  had  no  end  out  of  itself,  that  is  to  say,  it  only 
existed  for  the  mere  sake  of  existence,  to  excite  arrogance 
and  vanity  in  the  higher  ranks,  and  envy  in  the  lower. 
However,  all  social  conditions  had  this  in  common,  that 
they  were  all  equally  deprived  of  all  political  rights,  equal- 
ly estranged  from  all  public  existence,  equally  excluded 
from  all  participation  in  affairs  of  state,  and  from  all  act- 
ive or  civic  callings. 

The  first  rank  was  held  by  the  court  nobility.  This 
nobility,  excepting  some  months  of  occupation  in  times  of 
war,  was,  by  its  very  birth-right,  given  up  to  enjoyment ; 
and  this  was  their  glory. 

The  provincial  nobility  occupied  the  second  rank. 
These,  in  their  smaller  circle,  imitated  their  betters  at 
court.  While  detesting  their  brilliant  model,  they  yet 
copied  it ;  it  never  entered  into  the  thoughts  of  any  of  their 
members  to  seek,  by  relations  with  the  people,  a  credit 
and  importance  which  they  did  not  possess  by  any  quali- 
ties of  their  ancestors,  or  any  favors  from  their  prince. 

The  civic  robe  had  its  functions  ;  it  was  absolutely 
necessary  that  the  townsmen  should  embrace  different 
professions ;    but  the  (unctions  of  the   magistracy  were 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  241 

oiten  an  object  of  ridicule  and  disdain.  In  the  great  par- 
liamentary families,  each  aimed  at  laying  aside  the  civic 
robe,  in  order  to  become  invested  with  the  embroidered 
dress.  The  professions  of  civic  life  stamped  those  who 
abandoned  themselves  to  it  with  vulgarity;  in  the  good 
families  among  the  townspeople,  each  aimed  at  acquiring 
some  polish  by  purchasing  a  position  as  secretary  to  the 
king. 

The  artisans  in  the  towns,  the  villagers  in  the  country, 
worthy  heirs  of  Jacques  Bonhomme — a  gentleman  subject 
to  taxes  and  duties  at  discretion — counted  for  nothing, 
and  were  nothing. 

What  must  have  been  the  preferences  of  a  society  so 
constituted  ? 

Three  things — three,  in  truth,  and  no  more  :  ambition, 
gallantry,  and  dissipation.  Ambition,  that  is  to  say,  the 
disposition  to  gain  advancement  from  a  master,  to  obtain 
favors,  distinctions,  eminent  positions,  pensions,  and  to  ob- 
tain them  by  favoritism  and  the  power  of  being  agreeable, 
by  intrigues  and  solicitations.  Gallantry — the  gratifica- 
tion of  personal  vanity  or  sensuality.  Lastly,  dissipation 
--dissipation  under  all  forms,  hunting  parties  and  gam- 
b'  ing  parties,  assemblies  for  pleasure  or  debauchery,  balls, 
suppers,  sights  ;  dissipation  as  the  definitive  aim  of  exist- 
ence, the  final  end  of  all  means — life  having  apparently 
been  given  to  man  only  for  enjoyment,  and  time  only  to 
be  squandered  and  killed. 

"We  are  speaking  of  society  in  general,  and  without  for- 
getting the  fact  that  these  absolute  verdicts,  by  reason  of 
their  very  absoluteness,  are  always  somewhat  unjust  and 
exaggerated. 

But  it  is  worthy  of  remark  that  in  this  so  vain  a  mode 
of  existence,  in  this  state  of  living  and  acting,  of  thinking 


/42  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

and  feeling,  in  which  vanity  was  so  predominant,  nothing 
was  abandoned  to  caprice  ;  no  one  affected  a  style  of  in- 
dependence ;  on  the  contrary,  all  was  done  according  to 
rule — every  where  was  method  to  be  observed. 

Louis  XIV.,  while  changing  his  nobles  into  courtiers, 
reducing  his  Parliaments  to  the  level  of  dramatic  critics, 
despoiling  the  townspeople  of  then*  franchises,  and,  to  say 
all  in  one  word,  while  transforming  the  political  order  of 
the  entire  nation  into  a  civil  order — had  nevertheless  con- 
trived in  some  sort  to  impress  on  the  manners  and  habits 
which  resulted  therefrom  something  of  dignity  and  formal- 
ity which  belonged  not  to  their  nature — far  from  it — but 
to  his  character. 

His  court  was  grave,  although  the  morals  of  the  court- 
iers were  in  no  respect  better  on  this  account ;  his  magis- 
trates were  grave  without  being  independent ;  the  temper 
of  his  times  was  grave,  and  yet  servile. 

After  his  reign,  that  imperious  necessity  by  which  man 
is  impelled  to  exalt  into  maxims  the  motives,  whatever 
they  may  be,  which  determine  his  conduct,  and  to  refer 
his  own  conduct  to  certain  principles,  were  it  only  in  order 
that  he  may  know  what  he  has  done  and  whither  he  is 
tending — which  also  leads  him  thus  to  regard  the  actions 
of  others,  were  it  only  that  he  may  be  able  to  approve  or 
condemn  them — this  necessity  operated,  if  not  in  the  same 
sense,  yet  in  one  analogous  to  that  in  which  it  had  oper- 
ated under  Louis  XIV.  Thus  the  best  method  of  making 
way  in  the  world  became  a  science  which  the  old  courtier 
taught  ex  cathedra  to  his  children — a  science  which  had 
its  dogmas,  its  precepts,  and  its  traditions. 

Not  more  methodically  docs  an  engineer  make  his  ap- 
proaches to  a  place  which  he  is  besieging,  than  did  those 
ambitious  of  vindicating  the  worthiness  of  their  descent 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  243 

push  their  researches  into  the  offices  of  the  minister  and 
the  cabinets  of  Versailles.  The  Duke  De  Saint  Simon,  the 
most  severe,  the  sincerest,  and  the  most  honorable  man 
that  ever  lived  at  the  court,  devoted  three  fourths  of  his 
honorable  life  to  the  decision  of  points  of  precedence  or  re- 
spect, on  his  own  account  or  for  those  connected  with  him 
— questions  of  which  even  the  most  important  could,  at  the 
present  day,  only  induce  us  to  shrug  our  shoulders  and  to 
smile  derisively.  Sometimes  he  displayed  more  character 
than  would  have  been  necessary,  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Channel,  to  enable  a  Marlborough  or  a  Bolingbroke  to  im- 
pose peace  or  war  on  their  sovereign,  and  more  erudition 
and  research  than  a  Benedictine  would  put  into  a  folio 
volume. 

Gallantry  was  a  perpetual  war  between  the  two  sexes 
— a  war  which  had  its  tactics  and  stratagems,  its  princi- 
ples of  attack  and  defense,  its  appropriate  times  for  resist- 
ance and  surrender,  its  rights  of  conquest,  and  its  law  of 
nations. 

In  fact,  the  life  of  society  was  obliged  to  submit  to  all 
the  exigencies  of  a  conventional  morality,  very  different 
from  true  morality,  often  in  direct  opposition  to  it,  but 
quite  as  rigorous,  and  even  more  inaccessible  to  repent- 
ance. It  recognized  as  the  supreme  law,  even  in  its  most 
minute  details,  a  certain  code  of  proprieties,  the  yoke  of 
which  must  be  borne  gracefully — the  sensibilities  were  to 
be  controlled,  while  the  scholar  must  appear  perfectly  at 
ease. 

G-ood  breeding  was  the  highest  of  human  attainments, 
and  the  art  of  living  the  first  of  all  arts. 

It  is  said  that  literature  expresses  the  life  of  society — 
especially  is  this  affirmed  of  dramatic  literature.  If  this 
be  true,  and,  in  a  certain  sense,  it  undoubtedly  is  true, 


244  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

due  limitations  being  conceded,  then  our  general  litera- 
ture, and  more  especially  our  drama,  must  have  reflected 
more  or  less  accurately  this  two-fold  character  of  frivolity 
as  to  the  essence  of  things,  and  pedantry  as  to  their  forms. 

Accordingly  it  has  done  both.  Here,  too,  undoubtedly, 
exceptions  must  be  made,  and  that  to  a  considerable  ex- 
tent. Our  literature  has  ruled  in  Em-ope  for  a  hundred 
years,  and  never  has  it  demanded  from  men  an  admiration 
to  which  it  was  not  reasonably  and  justly  entitled ;  but 
still,  with  regard  to  its  most  general  features,  we  may  ad- 
mit that  it  has  been  neither  learned,  as  the  literature  of 
Germany  at  the  present  time  is,  and  as  was  Italian  liter- 
ature in  the  times  of  Petrarch  and  Politian,  nor  popular 
as  the  literature  of  Spain  was  during  the  period  of  its 
greatest  vigor.  It  was  essentially  and  pre-eminently  a 
polite  literature,  in  which  the  main  result  aimed  at  was 
conversation. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  our  drama.  Regarded  in  its 
most  general  features,  it  was  not  so  much  a  national  dra- 
ma as  an  elegant  and  fashionable  amusement,  a  pastime 
for  gentlemen  of  respectable  station  and  bearing,  at  which 
the  public  might  assist  if  it  paid  liberally  for  the  honor ; 
nearly  as  it  is  allowed  occasionally  to  look  on  from  the 
outer  side  of  the  barriers,  and  watch  the  progress  of  a  dress 
ball  or  a  state  dinner. 

Admiration  for  the  ancients  was  universally  affected ; 
our  watch- word  was,  "  Imitate  the  Ancients ;"  this  was  our 
"  Montjoie  Saint-Denis !"  in  literature.  And  yet  a  true 
appreciation  of  antiquity  was  not  possessed  by  really  learn- 
ed men,  even  by  those  who  really  did  possess  a  hearty 
appreciation  of  the  refinements  of  Greek  and  Latin  idiom. 
It  is,  however,  well  known  that  the  period  of  erudition 
quickly  passed.     It  is  not  to  be  denied  that,  by  the  mid- 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  24fc 

die  of  the  seventeenth  century,  sound  learning  and  sub- 
stantial erudition  were  every  where  on  the  decline,  and 
that,  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth,  they  had  fallen  almost 
into  entire  neglect.  Accordingly,  our  dramatic  produc- 
tions only  resembled  the  master-pieces  of  Greece  in  name 
and  in  the  choice  of  subjects,  by  certain  purely  external 
characteristics,  by  the  blind  observance  of  certain  maxims, 
whose  origin  was  not  cared  for  and  whose  relative  import- 
ance was  not  appreciated,  and  by  a  punctilious  deference 
to  the  distinction  between  different  species  of  the  drama 
So  far  as  the  real  character  of  the  works  was  concerned, 
as  to  the  characters,  sentiments,  ideas,  and  colorings  in- 
troduced, all  this  was  not  only  modern,  but  belonged  to 
the  existing  state  of  society — not  only  French,  but  the 
French  of  Paris,  or  even  of  Versailles. 

The  appreciation  of  national  history  and  monuments 
was  hardly  in  a  better  position.  There  was  no  taste  for 
antiquities  ;  no  sympathy  with  the  recollections  of  the 
masses  and  the  traditions  of  the  country  ;  there  was  noth- 
ing fresh  and  living  in  the  study  of  foreign  languages  and 
literatures. 

And  how  can  we  wonder  at  it  ?  In  mental  culture,  as 
in  all  other  things,  the  thread  of  destiny  was  in  the  keep- 
ing of  good  society.  At  the  cost  of  living  and  dying  igno- 
rant, it  was  necessary  to  be  fashionable,  first  in  the  ru- 
elles,  then  in  the  circles  and  entertainments  of  social  life. 
Poets,  orators,  historians,  or  moralists,  under  the  influence 
of  the  court  during  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.,  who  honored 
them  increasingly  with  his  notice,  but  who  always  kept 
them  at  a  proper  distance,  became  all-powerful  under  his 
successor,  so  as  to  be  in  some  sort  a  fourth  order  in  the 
state,  astonishing  at  that  time  France  and  Europe  by  the 
boldness  of  their  thoughts  and  the  ascendency  of  theii 


246  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

talent :  they  were  not  ashamed  to  affect  the  lofty  airs  of 
nobles  of  high  rank,  and  the  petty  dignities  of  coxcombs. 
Thus  the  writers  of  France  have  always  ruled  the  life  of 
men  of  the  world,  and  have  by  their  intrigues  gained 
successes  in  society,  degraded  their  genius  to  the  limits 
of  its  narrow  and  confined  atmosphere,  and  flattered  those 
very  whims  which  they  professed  to  ridicule.  No  country 
has  shown  itself  more  fertile  in  men  of  great  mind  than 
ours ;  no  country  has,  so  much  as  our  own,  compelled  these 
minds,  whether  they  like  it  or  not,  to  muffle  themselves 
up  in  the  livery  of  respectability.  We  may  find  even 
books  of  the  greatest  literary  weight  which  seem,  like  their 
authors,  to  have  adopted  the  fineries  of  the  time,  in  order 
to  adorn  their  exterior.  Can  we  forbear  smiling,  for  ex- 
ample, when  we  see  the  illustrious  Montesquieu  sometimes 
decking  his  great  work  with  spangles,  and  oftener  still 
using  epigrams  for  the  purpose  of  giving  smartness  to  it ; 
and  all  in  order  that  the  leaves  of  his  immortal  work  might 
enjoy  the  rare  advantage  of  being  turned  over  by  flippant 
spirits,  and  read  aloud  at  ladies'  toilets. 

And  then,  what  immeasurable  importance  was  attached 
to  light  literature  !  What  an  event  was  the  publication 
of  a  new  piece,  or  of  a  collection  of  fugitive  poems  !  What 
a  hit  for  some  election  to  a  chair,  or  for  some  green-room 
intrigues  !  What  a  swarm  of  poetasters  of  all  dimensions  ! 
What  a  herd  of  pretentious  prose-writers  on  all  subjects  of 
interest !  And  what  a  conviction  on  the  part  of  all  these, 
that  the  human  race  ought,  laying  aside  every  other  oc- 
cupation, to  fix  its  eyes  upon  them  alone ;  and  that  tho 
world  had  been  created,  five  or  six  thousand  years  before, 
merely  that  it  might  enjoy  their  small  productions,  assist 
in  their  small  triumphs,  and  take  part  in  fheir  small  con- 
troversies ! 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  247 

The  French  Revolution  cast  down  the  whole  of  this 
social  edifice  ;  and  it  has,  so  to  speak,  razed  ii  to  the 
ground ! 

Whether  this  is  an  evil  or  a  good,  each  man  must  de- 
termine for  himself.  Certain  it  is  that  we  owe  to  this  rev- 
olution the  restitution  of  men  to  their  proper  ranks,  and 
of  tilings  to  their  appropriate  places  ;  this  it  is  that  has 
restored  the  true  relation  of  names  and  things.  Hence- 
forth the  serious  is  serious,  the  frivolous  is  frivolous.  Con- 
ventionalities have  given  place  to  realities. 

The  French  are  equal  among  themselves  ;  they  have 
their  individual  rights  to  carry  out ;  and  they  have  duties 
to  fulfill  toward  the  state.  All  honorable  professions  are 
honored ;  each  leads  to  a  worthy  end.  No  longer  are  there 
legal  distinctions  which  are  not  derived  from  any  diversity 
of  rights  and  functions  ;  no  longer  are  there  social  distinc- 
tions which  rest  upon  no  superior  merit,  education,  or  en- 
lightenment. Ambition  is  obliged  to  exhibit  its  titles,  and 
to  show  itself  in  open  daylight ;  depraved  habits  must 
seek  concealment ;  crime  must  shelter  itself  under  excuses. 

In  presence  of  such  a  new  condition  of  men  and  things, 
that  which  was  formerly  denominated  the  great  world 
must  consent  that  its  star  should  decline.  It  has  finished 
as  the  monarchy  of  the  great  King  Louis  has  finished ;  it 
has  abdicated  as  did  the  Emperor  Napoleon,  who  regarded 
the  great  king  as  his  predecessor,  and  neglected  no  means 
of  reviving  the  state  that  existed  in  his  time.  We  have 
seen  this  great  world  pass  away,  with  its  fantastic  prohi- 
bitions and  its  immoral  indulgences,  with  its  flimsy  pro- 
prieties and  its  scrupulous  injunctions,  with  its  heroes  of 
good  fortune  and  its  jurisdiction  of  old  women.  Our  court 
is  now  only  a  coterie,  if,  indeed,  it  can  claim  even  to  be 
bo  much  as  that ;  a  thousand  other  coteries  share  the  town 


248  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

among  them  ;  each  city  of  any  considerable  extent  has  its 
own  coteries ;  all  these  partial  societies  are  independent 
of  each  other,  and  make  no  foolish  pretensions  to  mutual 
domination  or  remonstrance ;  every  one  amuses  himself 
where  and  how  he  can,  and  no  one  finds  fault  with  him ; 
and,  accordingly,  no  one  attempts  to  extract  glory  out  of 
his  pleasures,  and  to  believe  himself  on  this  account  a  great 
man. 

With  a  change  of  manners  there  has  been  a  change  of 
tastes.  General  life  has  become  simple  and  active,  labo- 
rious and  animated.  Every  man  occupies  his  place,  has 
a  distinct  aim,  and  aims  at  that  which  is  worth  the  labor 
he  bestows  upon  it.  Public  discussions  and  a  free  press 
afford  an  uninterrupted  stream  of  information  concerning 
the  greatest  human  and  national  interests.  The  bloodless, 
but  ardent  and  vehement,  struggles  of  the  tribune  divide, 
excite,  irritate,  or  enliven  every  day,  and  carry  us  onward 
from  fear  to  hope,  from  triumph  to  defeat. 

In  order  to  beguile  the  attention  of  the  public  from  these 
powerful  attractions,  literature  must  present  something 
else  besides  distractions  which  it  no  longer  needs;  and 
must  afford  a  means  of  passing  the  time  which  shall  not 
impose  any  extra  burden.  Literature  must  either  attract 
or  instruct — it  must  raise  man  from  himself  and  from  all 
around  him,  or  it  must  powerfully  urge  him  to  reflection 
and  meditation.  The  rivalries  of  poets  are  no  longer  any 
thing  to  him  ;  academic  disputes  lie  out  of  his  world.  He 
has  no  disposition  to  engage  in  the  controversy  which 
would  determine, 

"  Des  deux  Poinsinet  lequel  fait  le  mieux  les  vers ;" 

nor  to  subsist  for  a  fortnight  on  that  which  is  worth  no 
more  than  one  of  Chamfort's  epigrams,  one  of  Panard'a 
nongs,  or  one  of  Dortit's  heroics. 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE  249 

Accordingly,  for  the  last  twelve  or  fifteen  years,  that  ia 
to  say,  since  the  time  when  France  first  began  to  breathe 
quietly  again  after  the  horrors  of  anarchy  and  the  confu- 
sions of  conquest,  while  we  see  all  that  small,  affected  lit- 
erature which  had  its  summer  of  Saint  Martin  under  the 
empire,  fall  into  insignificance  and  disrepute,  at  the  same 
time  that  we  see  genteel  garbs,  court  manners,  and  beau- 
tiful monarchical  principles  abandoned,  we  also  see  spring- 
ing up  on  all  sides  a  taste  for  whatever  is  solid  and  true. 
Erudition  is  being  restored  ;  there  is  a  more  real  apprecia- 
tion of  the  ancients  now  than  there  ever  was  in  any  for- 
mer time ;  the  knowledge  of  foreign  languages  is  beinsf  ex- 
tended  every  day  ;  voyages  are  being  multiplied ;  scien- 
tific and  literary  correspondence  is  being  extended  on  all 
sides ;  central  institutions  for  intellectual  pursuits  are  es- 
tablished in  our  departments,  and  are  beginning  to  under- 
take laborious  inquiries  respecting  our  national  antiquities. 
The  Normal  School  glittered  only  for  a  season,  but  it  has 
left  permanent  memorials  of  its  existence  ;  it  has  founded, 
for  example,  a  philosophical  school,  which  now  occupies  a 
foremost  position  in  Europe,  which  does  not  swear  by  the 
words  of  any  master,  which  does  not  despise  the  labors  of 
any  of  its  predecessors,  which  does  not  blink  any  of  the 
great  problems  of  the  world  and  of  humanity  ;  while  it 
neither  arrogantly  attempts  to  decide  them  by  a  few 
phrases,  nor  infatuatedly  dismisses  them  with  disdain. 
Side  by  side  with  this  philosophical  school,  a  historical 
school  has  arisen,  in  which  a  union  is  often  effected  be- 
tween that  vast  erudition  which  allows  no  details  to  es- 
cape it,  and  that  powerful  imagination,  we  would  willing- 
ly say,  that  half-creative  imagination,  which  knows  how 
to  revive  times  and  men  that  have  passed  away,  and  pre. 
sent?  them  before  us  glowing  with  the  colors  of  life  and 


250  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

of  truth.  The  admirable  romances  of  the  most  original 
and  fertile  genius  of  our  period,  so  riveting  and  instruct- 
ive, filled  at  once  with  reality  and  poetic  invention,  with 
the  idiosyncrasy  of  the  writer  and  the  erudition  of  the 
schools,  with  ability  and  gracefulness — these  romances  all 
testify,  by  their  immense  popularity,  to  the  not  less  pop- 
ularity of  that  mental  disposition  which  they  inspire.  For, 
in  fact,  the  delight  felt  by  the  upper  classes,  and  the  ad- 
miration expressed  for  them  by  those  of  high  culture  u 
but  a  small  part  of  their  success ;  they  penetrate  into 
counting-houses,  they  descend  into  shops,  answering  a 
universal  and  imperious  necessity,  and  affording  it  an  ali- 
ment which  entertains  without  completely  satisfying  it. 

Can  we  seriously  believe  that,  in  this  general  forward 
movement,  the  theatre  will  remain  stationary  ?  Can  it  be 
that  the  public  will  bring  to  the  drama  other  ideas,  other 
tastes,  other  dispositions  than  those  which  it  carries  into 
all  other  places  and  all  other  things  ? 

The  play  must,  in  these  times,  address  itself  to  the 
public ;  it  must  interest  and  excite  them ;  no  longer  is  it 
designed  to  relieve  the  monotony  of  a  couple  of  hours  for 
a  select  number  of  languid,  lounging,  fashionable  gentle- 
men, or  to  supply  materials  for  conversation  to  four  or  five 
recognized  cliques  and  their  dozens  of  humbler  imitators 
who  may  frequent  the  coffee-houses.  And  this  change 
must  inevitably  influence,  sooner  or  later,  the  general  tone 
of  all  dramatic  writings.  Those  immortal  beauties — 
beauties  for  all  times  and  all  places — with  which  our 
theatre  abounds,  have  not,  thank  Heaven  !  lost  their  pow- 
er over  our  minds ;  but  where,  henceforth,  will  an  audi- 
ence be  found  to  relish  the  precious  metaphysical  gallant- 
ry, the  comic  or  tragic  balderdash,  the  philosophical  and 
sentimental  declamation  which  so  often  disfigure  it? 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  251 

Can  we  really  think,  for  instance,  that  if  the  great 
Corneille  were  to  return  to  earth,  the  Romans  which  he 
might  exhibit  would  not  be  somewhat  sensible  of  the  in- 
creased efficiency  of  our  colleges  ?  Can  we  believe  that 
the  illustrious  Racine,  if  he  should  revisit  us,  would  still 
make  Achilles  talk  like  a  French  chevalier,  and  put  mad- 
rigals into  the  mouth  of  Pyrrhus,  Mithridates,  or  Nero  ? 
Can  we  believe  that  Voltaire,  the  brilliant  and  pathetic 
Voltaire,  if  he  should  once  again  take  his  place  among  us, 
would  make  Zaire  profess  indifference  to  all  matters  of  re- 
ligion, and  declaim  to  the  savages  of  America  on  toleration 
— that  he  would  represent  Mohammed  employing  the  in- 
flated periods  of  a  Tartuffe,  and  depict  Gengis-Khan  under 
the  guise  of  a  faded  libertine  and  a  philosopher  disap- 
pointed with  human  greatness  ?  Wo  !  Emphatically  No ! 
Every  thing  in  its  place  and  time  !  Voltaire  himself  was 
the  first  to  ridicule  the  heroes  who  preceded  him — tender, 
mild,  and  discreet ;  he  was  the  first  to  hold  up  to  scorn  the 
ridiculous  fashion  of  describing 

"  Caton  galant  et  Brutus  dameret." 

He  has  attempted  tragedies  in  which  there  are  no  love 
scenes ;  he  has  proposed  to  restore  to  us,  once  for  all,  the 
Greeks  of  Greece  and  the  Romans  of  Rome  ;  and  the  rea- 
son why  he  did  not  completely  succeed  was  only  that  he 
was  not  sufficiently  acquainted  with  them.  Chenier,  in 
his  turn,  has  thought  good  to  remodel  Voltaire's  "  (Edipe." 
Still,  Voltaire  was  the  first  who  attempted  to  appeal  to 
national  sentiments  and  popular  recollections,  and  many 
others  since  his  time  have  followed  in  his  track.  We 
might  trace  back  to  a  time  considerably  anterior  to  the 
beginning  of  this  century,  a  confused  sense  of  the  neces- 
sity for  a  reform  in  the  theatre,  a  dim  consciousness  'row 


252  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

much  there  was  in  the  existing  state  of  the  theatre  that 
was  formal,  narrow,  and  contemptible.  Grimm's  corre- 
spondence indicates  this  in  every  page.  More  than  sev- 
enty years  ago,  Colle  lampooned  the  French  tragedy  in  a 
satiric  poem  full  of  wit,  in  which  great  good  sense  is  con- 
tained beneath  an  inexhaustible  vein  of  drollery.  And  if 
this  want  was  felt  thus  strongly  at  this  period,  what  must 
be  the  case  now,  when  authors,  as  we  have  just  said,  have 
to  do  no  longer  with  a  fictitious,  but  with  a  real  public  ? 
when  that  same  public  has,  for  more  than  forty  years, 
taken  its  part  in  all  the  great  realities  of  public  as  well  as 
private  life. 

Indeed,  we  ourselves,  who  are  now  occupying  the  scene, 
have  taken  part  in  terrible  events  ;  we  have  witnessed  the 
fall  and  rise  of  empires  :  and  how  can  we  be  persuaded  that 
such  revolutions  are  accomplished  by  some  six  or  seven 
persons,  whose  two  or  three  uninteresting  confidants  bus- 
tle and  declaim  in  a  space  of  fifty  square  feet  ?  "We  have 
known,  and  that  personally,  great  men  —  conquerors, 
statesmen,  conspirators — men  of  flesh  and  blood :  power- 
ful by  their  arms,  by  their  genius,  and  by  their  eloquence ; 
and,  in  order  to  be  interested,  we  must  be  pointed  to  men 
equally  real,  to  men  who  resemble  them  in  all  respects. 

Still,  if  our  actually  existing  poets  were  men  of  the 
stamp  of  Racine  and  Voltaire — if,  like  those  great  men, 
they  knew  how  to  animate  a  deplorably  withered  frame 
by  lavishing  upon  it  all  the  treasures  of  sentiment  and  of 
poetry — if,  imitating  the  noble  birds  of  the  days  of  chiv- 
alry, they  could,  like  them,  although  carried  on  the  hand, 
release  themselves  from  time  to  time  from  the  straitness 
of  their  position,  and  soar  into  the  clouds  with  a  brilliant 
and  rapid  flight,  they  might  win  some  success.  But  it,  is 
not  so  ;  and   this  is  exactly  the  one  inconvenience  of  n 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  253 

style  which  flourished  a  hundred  years  ago,  with  which 
we,  the  public  of  to-day,  are  obliged  to  remain  contented 
and  happy. 

Tragedies  have  been  almost  all  fashioned  after  one 
model — all  cast  so  very  nearly  in  the  same  mode,  that 
any  one  rather  experienced  in  theatrical  progression  might 
boldly  foreteil  the  scheme  of  each  scene  as  it  arrived.  In 
the  first  act  there  is  the  narrative  of  the  dream  or  the 
storm ;  the  second  contains  the  declaration,  the  third  the 
recognition,  and  so  on.  The  Alexandrines  march  on  in 
stately  order,  and  seem,  most  of  them,  to  belong  to  the 
stock  of  theatrical  properties,  as  much  as  the  decorations 
and  costumes.  The  personages  have  their  parts  and  move 
ments  appropriated  and  determined  like  the  pieces  in  a 
game  of  chess ;  so  much  so,  that  we  might  call  them,  for 
the  sake  of  convenience,  by  some  generic  name ;  for  ex- 
ample, the  king,  the  tyrant,  the  queen,  the  conspirator, 
the  confidant — almost,  as  Goethe  has  entitled  the  inter 
locutors  in  one  of  his  dramas,  the  father,  the  mother,  the 
sister,  and  so  on.  What,  for  instance,  does  it  matter 
whether  the  queen,  who  has  killed  her  husband,  be  called 
Somiramis,  Clytemnestra,  Joan  of  Naples,  or  Mary  Stuart ; 
whether  the  royal  legislator  is  called  Minos  or  Peter  tht- 
Great ;  whether  the  usurper  is  called  Artaban,  Polyphon- 
tes,  or  Cromwell — when  their  words  and  actions,  theij 
thoughts  and  feelings,  are  always  the  same,  or  very  near 
ly  so  ?  when  they  are  only  so  many  variations  on  one  nee- 
essary  plot  ? 

It  is  said  that  a  young  poet,  whose  name  we  have  for- 
gotten, having  borrowed  the  subject  of  his  tragedy  from 
the  history  of  Spain,  and  finding  himself  on  this  account 
brought  into  collision  with  the  censor  of  the  press,  took  it 
into  his  head  to  transport  the  scene,  by  two  strokes  cf  hia 


2,i4  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

pen,  from  Barcelona  to  Babylon,  and  to  carry  the  events 
back  from  the  sixteenth  century  to  a  period  somewhere 
near  the  time  of  the  deluge ;  a  plan  which  succeeded  to 
his  heart's  content,  besides  that,  as  Baby  lone  rhymes  to 
the  same  words  as  Barcelone,  and  is  composed  of  exactly 
the  same  number  of  syllables,  there  was  but  little  neces- 
sity for  changing  the  most  vigorous  and  lofty  speeches. 
We  do  not  guarantee  the  truth  of  the  story,  but  we  do  not 
think  it  at  all  improbable. 

Doubtless,  this  insupportable  monotony — the  evils  and 
puerilities  of  so  much  conventional  apparatus — the  disgust, 
the  weariness,  the  satiety  which  it  all  excites  in  such  a 
public  as  ours — the  despondency  at  seeing  nothing  true 
produced  for  the  stage — these  causes  have  constantly  led 
the  way  to  all  kinds  of  innovation.  Our  public  is  not  to 
be  captivated  either  by  system  or  by  caprice  ;  it  is  no  de- 
spiser  of  really  excellent  productions  ;  it  has  no  disposition 
to  blaspheme  the  demi-gods  of  past  times ;  but,  like  the 
little  girl,  it  says,  "  My  good  friend,  I  have  seen  the  sun 
so  often  !"  Like  the  grand  Conde,  it  says,  "  I  am  quite 
ready  to  forgive  the  Abbe  D'Aubignac  for  not  having  ob- 
served the  rules,  but  I  can  not  forgive  the  rules  which 
have  made  him  produce  such  an  execrable  piece." 

In  the  midst  of  this  perplexity,  not  knowing  what  saint 
to  invoke,  who  can  deliver  them  from  this 

"  Race  d' Agamemnon  qui  ne  finit  jamais," 

these  everlasting  bores  who,  if  they  are  hissed  down  to- 
day in  the  toga,  will  reappear  to-morrow  hooded  with  a 
turban ;  in  this  perplexity,  certain  talented  critics  make 
their  appearance,  writers  of  the  rarest  ability  and  of  the 
greatest  sagacity,  who,  with  a  good-natured  smile,  address 
the  public  in  some  such  terms  as  these  : 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  255 

"  Can  you  not  see  what  all  this  weariness  under  which 
you  groan  is  owing  to  ?  and  whence  arises  this  monotony 
which  sickens  you  ?  In  a  given  time  and  space  only  a 
certain  number  of  things  are  possible  ;  and  the  more  cir- 
cumscribed the  space,  the  more  limited  the  time,  the  few- 
er events  can  be  brought  before  you.  Names  may  be 
changed,  costumes  may  be  changed,  but  no  further  change 
is  possible.  And  much  more  must  this  be  the  case  if  you 
multiply  arbitrary  prescriptions  and  prohibitions ;  if  you 
demand,  for  instance,  that  the  individual  who  weeps  shall 
do  nothing  but  weep,  and  that  the  laugher  shall  do  noth- 
ing but  laugh ;  if  you  forbid  him  who  has  once  spoken 
in  verse  from  speaking  afterward  in  prose,  or  vice  versa, 
or  if  you  forbid  him  who  has  once  spoken  in  a  verse  of 
twelve  syllables  from  ever  making  use  of  a  verse  of  rather 
smaller  dimensions  ;  and  if  you  determine  it  to  be  beneath 
the  dignity  of  tragedy  to  employ  any  colloquial  forms  of 
expression.  Bind  a  man  hand  and  foot — as  you  please ; 
put  a  mask  on  his  countenance — very  good  ;  condemn  him 
to  recite  litanies  to  the  Virgin  in  a  style  of  passive  imper- 
turbability— be  it  so  ;  but  do  not  then  demand  of  him  va- 
riety in  his  movements,  flexibility  in  his  physiognomy,  or 
diversity  in  his  language." 

And  the  public  must  confess  that  this  is  very  plausible 
reasoning. 

Accordingly,  when  young  poets,  encouraged  by  favora- 
ble circumstances,  advance  timidly  before  the  people,  and 
humbly  beg  them  to  hold  them,  for  a  time,  free  from  con- 
secrated rules  and  cruelly  rigorous  fetters,  promising,  in 
return  for  this  indulgence,  to  move  them,  to  interest  them, 
to  show  them  living  and  real  events — the  public  answers 
them,  "  Make  the  attempt,  we  will  listen  attentively." 

This  is  the  secret  of  that  which  is  transpiring  at  the 


256  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

present  day.  Are  not  we  then,  in  France,  in  danger  of 
being  betrayed  into  some  rasli  procedures  ?  For  forty 
years-,  established  usages  have  been  attacked  which  ap- 
peared more  solid  than  our  theatrical  system ;  things 
which  seemed  more  sacred  even  than  Aristotle's  precepts 
have  been  looked  at  with  bold  defiance. 

If,  at  this  crisis,  a  great  dramatic  poet  should  arise 
among  us — if  this  great  dramatic  poet  would  take  part 
with  the  innovators,  all  difficulties  would  very  soon  be 
overcome.  But,  unfortunately,  we  have  no  such  drama- 
tist ;  as  far  as  talent  is  concerned,  the  authors  of  the  new 
school  have  not  hitherto  had  a  very  decided  advantage 
over  their  brethren  of  the  old  school.  Their  works  cer 
tainly  possess  more  interest,  more  movement,  more  varie- 
ty ;  but  these  merits  belong  to  the  school  to  which  they 
have  attached  themselves,  and  this  is  the  reason  why  their 
works  have  drawn  crowds,  while  the  productions  of  their 
more  old-fashioned  brethren  are  abandoned.  But  their 
works  are  indicative  rather  of  reminiscence  than  of  inven- 
tion ;  more  of  an  honest  disposition  to  create  than  of  a 
creative  genius.  The  execution  betrays  absence  of  power 
and  groping  after  effect,  rather  than  native  vigor  and  gen- 
uine originality.  The  blame  rests  with  the  individuals  ; 
and  this  is  the  reason  why  the  public  is  as  yet  undecided 
which  of  the  two  opposed  systems  it  shall  finally  adopt, 
and  shows  itself  much  more  disposed  to  thank  them  for 
their  efforts  than  to  award  them  the  palm  of  triumph. 

How  long,  then,  is  this  feeble  flight  of  dramatic  talent, 
this  sterility  of  true  genius,  with  which,  to  our  great  re- 
gret, the  new  school — that  school  which  has  hardly  exist- 
ed more  than  four  or  five  years — has  been  stricken  :  how 
long  is  this  to  last  ?  The  answer  to  such  a  question  must 
remain  unknown  to  man,  and  must  bo,  left  to  Provi  lenoe  ; 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  257 

our  fervent  wish,  both  for  the  credit  of  art  and  the  honor 
of  our  country,  is  that  it  may  not  be  delayed  very  long 
Meanwhile,  is  it  graceful,  and,  above  all,  is  it  just,  for  the 
partisans  of  the  old  system  in  literature  to  exult  over  this 
fact,  as  they  too  often  do  ?  Are  they  reasonable  in  ask- 
ing us,  with  an  air  of  raillery,  what  master-pieces  the  new 
theatrical  system  can  boast  of?  Have  they  any  right  to 
say  to  the  critics  who  have  expounded  and  displayed  it, 
"  You  know  not  whereof  you  are  speaking;  and,  as  a  proof 
of  this,  nothing  that  has  been  done  under  your  auspices 
at  all  corresponds  to  your  magnificent  promises  ?" 

We  might  even  agree  with  them ;  for  if,  by  way  of  re- 
prisal, we  should  afterward  ask,  concerning  Aristotle's 
Poetics,  what  tragedies  of  worth  it  succeeded  in  inspiring 
in  Greece ;  concerning  Horace's  Ars  Poetica,  what  illus- 
trious monuments  of  its  truthfulness  remain  from  the 
theatre  of  the  Latins ;  concerning  La  Harpe's  Cours  de 
Litterature,  what  master-pieces  we  may  thank  it  for  ?  the 
answer  would  not  be  very  much  to  their  advantage. 

Nature  alone  creates  great  poets  ;'  by  her  sole  agency 
the  world  has  been  gifted,  at  long  intervals,  with  a  Sopho- 
cles, a  Shakspeare,  a  Racine,  a  Moliere  ;  and  after  each 
such  effort,  the  repose  is  long  and  protracted.  No  human 
endeavors  can  be  so  successful  as  to  supply  the  lack  of 
that  which  nature  alone  can  give  ;  and  any  theory  for  the 
creation  of  great  men — any  pompous  megalanthropoge- 
nesy — is  an  insane  imposition,  either  in  literature  or  any 
where  else.  We  will  even  go  further ;  what  is  true  of 
genius  is  equally  true  of  talent :  however  little  of  it  may 
exist,  yet  in  whatever  degree  it  is  to  be  found,  nature 
alone  has  all  the  honor.  Criticism  does  for  it  nothing 
Tiore  than  it  does  for  every  one  else ;  i*  ba  j  uj  formula  of 


2SS  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

talent  ready  made  ;  it  has  no  receipts  for  the  manufacture 
of  good  tragedies  and  amusing  comedies. 

Nothing  is,  in  fact,  more  common  than  thus  to  misap- 
prehend the  design  and  nature  of  certain  things. 

When  the  Organon  of  the  Stagyrite  philosopher  was  re- 
discovered in  the  Middle  Ages,  those  who  first  studied  it 
thought  they  had  met  with  a  kind  of  enchantment,  and 
certainly  they  had  good  reason  for  so  thinking  ;  for  this 
Organon,  this  admirable  logical  system,  is  one  of  the  most 
wonderful  monuments  of  the  greatness  and  power  of  the 
human  mind  that  exists.  But  immediately  they  started 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  aim  of  logic  was  to  teach  men 
reasoning,  and  that  reasoning  was,  if  not  the  only,  yet 
certainly  the  principal  means  of  attaining  truth  —  that 
whosoever  should  thoroughly  master  the  syllogism  could 
never  again  be  deceived  in  any  thing,  and  would  have 
reached  the  utmost  boundaries  of  human  knowledge.  This 
was  a  great  mistake ;  no  one  can  estimate  the  follies  and 
sophistries,  the  strifes  and  subtleties,  which  this  has  cost 
us.  Logic  teaches  man  nothing  which  he  could  not  al- 
ready do  alone,  and  without  its  assistance  ;  the  syllogistic 
procedure  is  the  natural  and  spontaneous  method  ;  it  need 
not  be  formally  learned  in  order  to  its  being  employed. 
There  are,  besides,  other  conditions  for  good  reasoning — a 
clear  vision  and  an  adequate  conception  of  the  subject,  a 
just  regard  to  all  the  conditions  implied  in  the  problem  to 
be  solved,  and  the  faculty  of  retaining  them  firmly  during 
the  whole  course  of  the  deduction.  And  these  things  are 
all  given  by  nature ;  logic  can  not  impart  the  secret  of 
acquiring  them.  Must  we,  then,  on  the  other  hand,  con- 
clude, as  some  philosophers  have  concluded,  that  logic  is 
good  for  nothing  ?  By  no  means  ;  this  would  be  to  rush 
blindly  to  the  opposite  extreme.     The  design  of  logic  is 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  259 

not  to  teach  men  to  reason,  but  to  teach  them  how  they 
actually  do  reason ;  it  is  a  branch  of  mental  philosophy  ; 
it  discloses  to  us  the  nature  of  one  of  our  most  remarkable 
mental  processes  ;  it  explains  to  us  its  laws,  its  action, 
its  mechanism  ;  it  reveals  the  human  mind  to  itself.  He 
who  studies  it  properly  will  always  study  it  advantageous- 
ly ;  he  will  rise  from  this  study  with  a  more  enlightened 
and  practiced,  a  stronger  and  more  dexterous  mental  or- 
gan— more  fitted,  in  one  word,  for  all  things,  not  even 
excepting  reasoning  itself;  for  never  is  it  in  any  respect 
fruitless  to  develop  human  intelligence,  and  to  enlarge 
and  purify  the  judgment. 

The  same  must  be  said  01  criticism.  It  also  is  a  branch 
of  mental  philosophy.  It  also  enlightens  the  mind  with 
regard  to  its  own  operations,  and  shows  it  in  reflection  the 
method  of  its  own  activity  ;  but  it  neither  confines  it  with- 
in the  limits  of  the  schools,  nor  subjects  it  to  a  dwarfing 
and  lasting  pupillage. 

The  beautiful  exists ;  it  exists  in  the  external  world 
and  in  the  soul  of  man,  in  the  phenomena  of  nature  and 
in  the  events  in  which  humanity  displays  itself.  Some- 
times it  is  manifested  entirely  in  these  regions  ;  but  oft- 
ener  it  gives  only  a  glimpse  and  a  hint  of  its  presence. 
Genius  seizes  it  and  makes  it  its  own  possession  ;  it  re- 
ceives the  impression,  and  then  gives  it  out  in  a  purer  and 
more  vivid  state  than  that  in  which  it  first  appeared  ;  it 
is  surprised  by  the  vision,  and  it  surprises  in  its  turn  by 
the  presentation  of  it.  Thus  genius  acts  under  the  influ- 
ence of  an  inspiration  ;  unconsciously,  yet  most  spontane- 
ously, it  avails  itself  of  the  processes  of  art.  The  eagle 
flies  because  it  is  an  eagle  ;  the  stag  bounds  because  it  is 
a  stag. 

What,  then,  is  the  province  of  criticism  ?     Its  position 


860  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

is  that  of  a  mediator  between  the  master-pieces  of  art  and 
the  minds  which  are  desirous  of  appreciating  them ;  be- 
tween the  man  of  talent  and  the  readers  whom  he  ad- 
dresses ;  sometimes  between  him  and  the  man  of  genius. 
Whether  we  be  small  or  great,  gifted  with  insight  or  not, 
it  initiates  us  into  the  secret  of  these  marvelous  beau- 
ties ;  it  displays  before  us  their  delicate  processes,  their 
hidden  relations,  their  mystic  laws.  This  is  its  work ; 
neither  more  nor  less. 

But  now  is  the  time  for  the  approach  of  ratiocinative 
mediocrity;  it  advances  with  lofty  assumption,  bearing 
the  staff  of  office,  availing  itself  of  these  expositions  in 
order  to  erect,  by  means  of  them,  a  clumsy  structure  of 
exact  formulas — burlesquing  these  delicate  and  cautious 
explanations  by  resolving  them  into  pedantic  precepts,  and 
appealing  to  lesser  spirits  to  experiment  upon  their  select 
list  of  instructions,  practical  precepts,  and  petty  routines. 
At  its  bidding,  the  laborers  set  to  work.  Equipped  with 
their  rule  and  compass,  they  draw  the  lines  and  measure 
out  the  compartments,  they  dissect  most  methodically  the 
mighty  productions  of  men  of  genius,  plundering  on  the 
right  hand  and  on  the  left,  pillaging  from  one  a  posture, 
from  another  a  stroke  of  sentiment,  from  a  third  an  idea, 
from  a  fourth  a  poetic  touch,  and,  readjusting  all  these  bits 
according  to  the  best  of  their  ability,  they  at  length  pro- 
duce a  sorry,  complicated  piece  of  mosaic,  dressed  in  truly 
harlequin  gear.  Hence  arises,  in  all  languages  which 
have  received  a  small  amount  of  culture,  a  deluge  of  bas- 
tard productions,  which  are  neither  good  nor  bad,  neither 
beautiful  nor  ugly,  neither  interesting  nor  ridiculous,  and 
which  have  no  other  fault  than  the  irremediable  one  of 
corresponding  to  nothing  whatever  that  exists  either  in 
Man  or  nature,  neither  in  the  mind  of  the  would-be  poet 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  26i 

nor  in  that  of  his  unfortunate  reader.  Hence,  for  exam- 
ple, the  amusement  which  so  many  poets  of  the  last  cen- 
tury gave  themselves,  of  composing  tens  of  thousands  of 
pastoral  verses,  which  gave  no  indication  that  during  the 
whole  period  of  their  existence  they  had  so  much  as  cast 
a  glance  upon  any  tree  in  the  Tuileries,  or  watched  the 
course  of  any  river  in  the  Gobelins.  Hence  arose,  in  a 
word,  all  that  rendered  literature  dull  and  poetry  fan- 
tastic. 

Criticism  that  is  worthy  of  the  name — true  criticism, 
indeed — has  nothing  to  do  with  this  foolish  attempt  to 
construct  the  agreeable  and  the  beautiful  into  a  fabric. 
Its  aim  is  not  to  teach  how  beautiful  things  may  be  made, 
but  to  exhibit  before  all  eyes,  and  help  all  minds  to  under- 
stand the  lustre  of  those  things  which  are  beautiful.  Its 
aim  is  to  increase  the  number  of  lofty  and  refined  spirits 
— minds  of  liberality  and  sagacity,  of  delicacy  and  en- 
lightenment ;  it  is  to  prepare  for  men  of  genius  and  of  tal- 
ent, whenever  nature  may  please  to  inspire  such,  a  public 
worthy  of  receiving  them,  whose  admiration  may  animate 
them,  and  whose  severe  taste  may  calm  and  moderate 
their  too  exuberant  activity. 

This  being  granted,  may  we  say  that  the  new  criticism, 
that  criticism  to  which  has  been  imputed,  whether  advis- 
edly or  not — or,  rather,  we  would  question  whether  or  not 
it  is  fitting  to  impute  to  this  criticism  alone  and  entirely 
— the  revolution  which  has  been  declared  in  our  theatre  . 
may  we  say  that  this  criticism  has  entirely  failed  in  its 
object  ?  If  it  has  not,  by  one  stroke  of  any  magic  wand, 
transformed  men  of  moderate  talent  into  great  poets,  may 
it  not  have  smoothed  the  way  before  great  poets  who  may 
yet  arise  ?  If  it  has  not  caused  beautiful  works  of  art  to 
spring  forth  from  the  bosom  of  the  earth,  may  it  not  have 


262  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

opened  many  eyes,  and  unstopped  many  deafened  ears  ? 
May  it  not,  to  a  certain  extent,  have  so  prepared  the  way 
for  great  works,  if  ever  Heaven  shall  grant  them  to  us, 
that  they  may,  on  their  arrival,  find  an  audience  disposed 
to  appreciate  them  and  qualified  to  estimate  them? 

Far  are  wo  from  thinking  that,  in  this  respect,  its  labors 
have  been  entirely  unavailing.  On  the  contrary,  we  are 
much  more  disposed  to  suspect  that,  in  more  than  one  re- 
lation, and  we  will  by  no  means  limit  ourselves  to  unim- 
portant relations,  the  new  criticism  has  succeeded  beyond 
its  expectations,  and  perhaps  even  beyond  its  desires  ;  we 
are  disposed  to  suspect  that  it  has  made  something  which 
is  of  greater  value  than  itself — that  it  has  involuntarily 
disencumbered  us  of  more  shackles  than  it  was  itself  aware 
of,  of  more  even  than  it  had  estimated.  What  is,  in  fact, 
the  error  of  criticism  in  general — we  mean  of  all  criticism 
that  has  any  weight  (the  smaller  species  are  not  worth  our 
notice) — a  kind  of  error  from  which  the  new  criticism  is 
not  exempt  to  any  great  extent  ? 

It  is,  as  it  seems  to  us,  a  certain  absence  of  mental  lib- 
erty when  absorbed  in  the  contemplation  of  things  which 
the  mind  either  approves  or  condemns  ;  a  certain  impuls- 
ive, passionate,  intolerant  disposition,  which  prevents  it 
from  reproving  with  the  severity  of  justice  any  thing  faulty 
in  that  which  it  admires,  and  of  admiring  with  generous 
self-abandonment  whatever  may  be  excellent  in  the  pro- 
ductions which  it  condemns. 

The  ancients,  for  example,  are  admired  every  where— 
and  unquestionably  they  are  entitled  to  be  so :  they  are 
admired  in  France,  in  Germany,  in  England  ;  they  are 
admired  from  very  different  motives,  sometimes  from  mo- 
tives contradictory  to  one  another,  and  certainly  this  ad- 
miration rests  upon  very  different  principles  in  different 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  263 

cases.  But,  in  truth,  where  have  they  as  yet  been  judged  ? 
where  have  they  been  appreciated  without  conventional 
enthusiasm,  without  an  unquestioning  devotion  ?  "Will  not 
the  man  who  shall  first  venture  openly  to  expose  their  de- 
fects, whatever  respect  he  may  retain  for  them,  stand  a 
chance  of  being  browbeaten,  and  abused  as  a  Barbarian 
and  a  (roth  ?  We  ourselves,  who  dare  to  hint  such  an  in- 
sinuation— what  a  storm  of  wrath  may  possibly  be  pre- 
paring to  burst  over  our  head  ? 

The  great  masters  of  our  language  have  been  very  ably 
appreciated,  analyzed,  and  commented  upon  by  La  Harpe 
— for  La  Harpe  was  no  vulgar  critic — but,  on  the  one 
hand,  he  would  not  have  deemed  that  sufficient  homage 
had  been  shown  to  Racine  and  Voltaire,  had  he  not  fas- 
tened Shakspeare  by  the  heels  to  their  triumphal  car,  and 
dragged  him  along  in  the  mud ;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
he  can  not  venture,  except  at  rare  intervals,  and  with  fal- 
tering accents,  to  expose  any  trifling  imperfection  in  the 
objects  of  his  adoration ;  the  enormous  defects  of  our  dra- 
ma do  not  at  all  shock  him ;  he  does  not  even  seem  to 
have  perceived  them. 

On  the  other  hand,  let  us  take,  as  representative  of  the 
new  criticism,  the  man  who  is  undeniably  its  glory  and 
ornament — the  man  who,  by  the  extent  and  variety  of  his 
knowledge,  by  the  profundity  and  originality  of  his  views, 
by  the  lively  appreciation  of  the  beautiful,  which  ever  ani- 
mates him,  and  by  that  ingenious  sagacity  which  never 
forsakes  him,  has  had  the  greatest  influence  on  the  ideas 
and  opinions  of  his  contemporaries  —  Wilhelm  Schlegel. 
He  will  be  found  to  exhibit  the  obverse  side  of  the  medal 

He  admires  Shakspeare  most  thoroughly  ;  he  has  trans- 
lated him  with  all  the  fondness  of  a  pupil  for  a  master ; 
he  has  also  a  passionate  admiration  for  Calderon  and  the 


264  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE 

Spanish  drama.  But,  in  order  to  balance  his  excesses  in 
these  directions,  he  habitually  judges  our  drama  with 
something  more  than  rigor ;  to  the  admirable  unaffected- 
ness  and  comic  vein  of  Moliere  he  is  entirely  insensible ; 
he  deprecates  the  "  Phedre"  of  Racine  as  much  inferior  to 
the  "  Phcedra"  of  Euripides  ;  to  many  of  our  merits  he  fre- 
quently grants  neither  sympathy  nor  justice  ;  to  our  most 
venial  defects  he  is  mercilessly  severe.  He  admires  Shaks- 
peare,  and,  in  his  enthusiasm,  not  only  is  Shakspeare  per- 
fect in  all  respects,  but  all  that  appertains,  either  imme- 
diately or  more  remotely  to  Shakspeare,  participates  in  the 
perfection  of  this  ideal. 

According  to  his  judgment,  the  period  in  which  Shaks- 
peare flourished  was  not  only  a  great  and  remarkable  pe- 
riod ,  but  a  period  of  taste  and  politeness  ;  it  was  not  only 
learned,  but  refined  ;  urbanity,  grace,  and  refined  pleas- 
antry were  its  most  prominent  and  characteristic  features. 

Shakspeare  himself  is  not  only  a  great  poet,  but  a  pro- 
found philosopher,  whose  thoughts  have  sounded,  down  to 
their  lowest  depths,  all  the  mysteries  of  the  world,  and  all 
the  intricacies  of  the  human  soul.  Not  only  are  his  pieces 
in  the  highest  degree  effective,  but  they  are  composed  with 
a  marvelous  and  irreproachable  art ;  every  thing,  whether 
it  be  great  or  small,  finds  its  proper  place  and  its  just  esti- 
mate in  his  writings.  The  gross  obscenities  with  which 
he  abounds  are  bursts  of  native  humor  ;  the  puns,  quips, 
and  quibbles  which  are  to  be  met  with  at  every  step,  even 
in  the  most  pathetic  passages,  are  sallies  of  the  most  irre- 
proachable taste  ;  his  anachronisms  have  their  merits  ;  his 
errors  in  geography,  in  history,  in  the  portraiture  of  men 
and  manners,  all  have  their  explanations. 

The  same  idolatry,  the  same  superstitious  ardor  is  shown 
for  the  Spanish  drama. 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  265 

It  must  be  admitted  that  those  of  our  French  critics 
who  were  the  first  to  adopt  the  doctrines  of  Schlegel  have 
taken  care  not  to  go  quite  so  far  as  he.  They  were  sensi- 
ble of  his  exaggerations.  They  have  maintained  their 
former  admiration  for  Racine  side  by  side  with  their  more 
recent  admiration  for  Shakspeare  ;  and  they  have  persist- 
3d  in  throwing  the  blame  of  the  mistakes  of  Shakspeare 
himself  upon  the  times  in  which  he  lived,  and  upon  the 
rare  genius  with  which  Heaven  endowed  him. 

But  we  must  confess,  also,  that  this  wisdom  has  been 
neither  general  nor  of  long  duration.  To  see  how  the  lead- 
ers of  our  modern  school  express  themselves  when  speak- 
ing of  the  English  and  the  Germans — of  Schiller,  of  Shaks- 
peare, and  of  Goethe — we  may  easily  perceive  that  they 
occupy,  with  reference  to  these  writers,  the  same  mental 
posture  which  La  Harpe  occupied  with  reference  to  Ra- 
cine or  Voltaire  ;  that  while  they  are  quite  willing  to  ex- 
press censure  on  a  point  of  trifling  importance,  they  do  so 
on  the  implied  condition  that  nothing  of  a  serious  or  fun- 
damental character  shall  be  questioned  by  them. 

For  example,  in  the  attempt  to  present  "  Othello"  in  its 
complete  form  for  the  Theatre  Francais  (an  attempt  which, 
moreover,  we  will  applaud  from  the  very  bottom  of  our 
heart),  in  this  attempt  to  reproduce  "  Othello,"  verse  by 
verse,  without  any  abridgment,  except  of  a  part  which  the 
police  would  not  have  suffered  to  pass — the  part  of  a  girl 
of  vicious  life,  a  part  besides  which  is  quite  useless,  and 
a  crowd  of  indecent  equivoques  and  disgusting  obscenities 
— who  could  be  persuaded  to  see  in  all  this  a  design  to 
offer  to  the  public,  not  a  spectacle  interesting  on  account 
of  its  novelty,  or  curious  because  of  the  period  to  which  it 
carries  us  back,  but  an  accomplished  model  of  art^-a  work 
perfect  in  all  its  features  ? 

M 


266  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

Well !  we  will  venture  to  assert  that  the  time  for  these 
exaggerations  has  already  passed  in  France  ;  we  will  ven- 
ture to  predict  that  there  is  in  the  general  good  sense  of 
the  people — a  good  sense  which  the  controversies  that  have 
been  going  on  for  the  last  fifteen  or  twenty  years  have  de- 
veloped and  prepared — something  which  will  prove  an  in- 
vincible obstacle  to  these  adorations  of  individuals,  and 
will  prevent  them  from  ever  so  gaming  ground  as  to  be- 
come common  opinions  and  recognized  doctrines.  We 
have,  with  some  trouble,  emancipated  ourselves  from  one 
extreme — we  will  not  allow  ourselves  to  run  heedlessly 
into  its  opposite.  We  have  disencumbered  ourselves  from 
some  thousands  of  small  prejudices — we  will  not  allow 
ourselves  to  be  swathed  in  a  host  of  prejudices  of  another 
kind. 

Every  time  that  the  attempt  which  has  just  been  made 
at  the  Theatre  Francais  shall  be  renewed  (and  we  hope  it 
may  be  often  renewed — this  will  be  a  much  more  worthy 
thing  than  the  presentation  before  us  of  new  and  medio- 
cre pieces),  the  problem  which  has  already  been  once  of- 
fered will  be  repeated — whether  the  public  will  consent 
to  abandon  the  freedom  of  its  judgment  in  favor  of  any 
thing,  by  whatever  sanctions  it  may  be  supported — wheth- 
er many  of  the  things  which  it  is  asked  to  admire  it  will 
be  contented  only  to  tolerate — whether  other  things,  simi- 
larly presented,  it  will  condemn — whether  others  will  be 
received  with  admiration,  but  from  new  motives,  of  a  more 
immediate  and  personal  character — whether,  so  far  at  least 
as  impartiality  is  concerned,  it  will  show  itself  to  be  supe- 
rior o  its  leaders — and  whether  it  will  regard  what  is  pre- 
sented to  it  from  a  point  of  view  more  elevated  than  theirs. 

We  say  that  this  has  already  been  once  realized ;  and 
we  say  so,  not  only  because  the  mass  of  the  public  refused 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  267 

to  take  a  decided  stand  either  with  the  detractors  of 
Shakspeare  or  with  his  enthusiastic  admirers — this  neu- 
trality was  rather  owing,  as  we  have  already  explained, 
to  the  unsettled  state  of  its  ideas  and  doctrines  than  to  the 
fear  lest  they  should  be  compromised — but  because  the 
impression  which  the  piece  made,  in  its  general  effect  and 
in  its  details,  appeared  to  us  to  involve  a  true  judgment, 
an  unconscious,  not  a  premeditated  judgment,  which  could 
only  be  read  on  the  countenances  of  the  audience,  a  judg- 
ment which  did  not  always  square  (far  from  it)  with  those 
ideas  which  the  most  accredited  critics  endeavor  to  give  us 
on  the  English  work,  but  which  was  more  original,  and, 
in  our  judgment,  more  worthy  of  respect  than  theirs. 

The  drama  in  question  is  divided  into  two  nearly  equal 
parts  ;  in  the  first  part,  which  comprises  the  first  two  acts 
and  some  scenes  of  the  third,  the  comic  element  is  most 
conspicuous  ;  the  tragic,  or  to  speak  more  exactly,  the  dig- 
nified, the  serious,  element  only  appears  once  for  a  brief 
space ;  in  the  second  part,  on  the  contrary,  the  tragic  el- 
ement predominates,  the  comic  only  appears  in  transient 
flashes. 

This  distinction  is  made  with  such  precision  in  the  orig- 
inal, that,  in  general,  the  comic  part  is  written  in  prose, 
while  the  tragic  part  is  written  almost  uniformly  in  verse  ; 
a  kind  of  mixture  which  Shakspeare  ordinarily  used  with 
most  marvelous  dexterity,  but  which  the  French  transla- 
tor has  not  ventured  to  introduce  upon  our  stage. 

The  comic  part  appeared  to  be  long  and  rather  over- 
drawn ;  the  general  effect  which  it  produced  was  a  feeling 
of  disapprobation  and  impatience. 

To  what  is  this  to  be  attributed  ?  Was  it  merely  the 
effect  of  the  admixture  of  comedy  and  tragedy  ?  a  feeling 
of  the  incompatibility  of  these  equally  simultaneous  im- 


268  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

pressions  ?  Doubtless  the  majority  of  the  audience  would 
thus  have  interpreted  what  they  felt.  But  suppose  the 
comic  part  had  been  of  a  different  character — that  it  had 
been  better  managed,  disposed  more  judiciously,  distribu- 
ted according  to  a  juster  proportion — would  the  same  ef- 
fect have  been  produced  ?  There  was  nothing  to  indicate 
that  it  would  ;  and  the  favor  with  which  some  salient  points 
were  received,  and  the  universal  laughter  which  they  ex- 
cited, may  even  induce  a  contrary  opinion. 

The  idea  of  allotting  an  equal,  or  nearly  an  equal  share 
of  attention  to  two  opposite  elements,  appears  to  us  a  vio- 
lation of  due  proportions,  and  to  rest  upon  a  false  princi- 
ple. "We  are  not  usually  sticklers  for  the  unities ;  still, 
however,  we  believe  that  a  certain  fundamental  unity  is, 
in  every  case,  a  condition  under  which  the  beautiful  is 
manifested  here  below.  The  effect,  the  legitimate  effect 
of  the  beautiful,  whatever  it  may  be,  is  to  raise  the  soul 
above  itself,  to  transport  it,  by  a  kind  of  magic  enchant- 
ment, into  a  sphere  where  all  its  transitory  interests  dis- 
a  ppear,  and  to  abolish  for  a  time  the  sentiment  of  its  in- 
dividuality.  Now  the  soul  of  man,  as  it  is  at  present  con- 
stituted, can  not  entirely  abandon  itself ;  it  can  not  forget 
itself,  and  lose  itself,  either  in  simultaneous,  or  in  two  suc- 
cessive impressions  of  a  precisely  opposite  character  and 
of  equal  force.  To  attempt  this  is  to  do  violence  to  its 
constitution. 

If  the  subject  of  "  Othello"  had  been  perfectly  unknown 
to  the  public,  if  the  public  could  have  freely  allowed  it- 
self to  be  carried  unresistingly  along  with  the  constant 
mysteriousness  that  is  connected  with  Roderigo,  the  sur- 
prise and  the  wrath  of  Brabantio,  the  drunkenness  of  Cas- 
sio,  and  the  ill-natured  jokes  of  the  buffoon,  uttered  in  a 
strain  of  mere  pleasantry,  it  would  from  the  first  have  as- 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  269 

cended  to  the  proper  elevation  of  gladness  and  hilarity  ; 
but  the  shock  could  not  but  be  unpleasant  to  them  when 
they  were  so  soon  to  pass  abruptly  from  this  gay  and  play- 
ful disposition  to  the  terrible  pathos  of  the  gigantic  scenes 
of  jealousy  which  terminate  the  third  act. 

But  as  they,  on  the  contrary,  had  entered  the  theatre 
with  their  expectations  directed  entirely  to  those  scenes 
of  jealousy,  and  to  other  scenes  not  less  terrible,  which 
were  to  grow  out  of  these,  as  they  were  anxiously  looking 
forward  to  the  catastrophe,  two  or  more  acts  full  of  sar- 
casms, facetiae,  and  jokes  appeared  to  the  public  a  severe 
trial,  a  somewhat  grim  preparation  ;  they  saw  in  it  some- 
thing not  merely  contrary,  but  opposed  and  shocking  to 
their  tastes,  something  which  overshot  the  mark,  whatever 
that  mark  may  be. 

Were  they  wrong  ?  Was  this  mere  prejudice  ?  We,  for 
our  part,  can  hardly  think  so. 

The  mixture  of  comedy  and  tragedy  is  not,  or  certainly 
ought  not  to  be,  a  purely  arbitrary  thing.  The  two  are 
not  brought  together  merely  for  the  sake  of  the  union. 
Opposition,  antithesis,  in  works  of  art,  is  not  in  itself  a 
merit,  has  no  intrinsic  value.  They  are  brought  together 
when  a  certain  kind  of  beauty  results  naturally  from  their 
juxtaposition  ;  they  are  united  because,  in  the  vicinity  of 
those  events  which  change  and  reverse  an  entire  life,  there 
are  the  world,  society,  and  the  crowd  of  indifferent  egotists 
who  move  on  without  caring  for  these  events,  whose  move- 
ments are  neither  disturbed  nor  disarranged  by  them,  who 
pursue  their  individual  interests,  ruled  by  their  habits, 
abandoned  to  selfishness;  and  because  the  contrast  be- 
tween situations  of  such  an  opposite  character,  and  sen- 
timents so  unlike  to  one  another,  after  it  has  compelled 
us  to  smile,  opens  to  us  a  point  of  view  from  which  human 


270  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

life  is  seen  shaded  with  a  fanciful  and  melancholy  tinge. 
Comedy  and  tragedy  are  blended,  because  a  flash  of  un- 
premeditated gayety  sometimes  crosses  the  minds  of  those 
who  are  corroded  by  remorse  or  stricken  by  despair,  and 
restores  them  for  an  instant  to  a  state  which  is  lost  to 
them — irremediably  and  hopelessly  lost — leaving  them  im- 
mediately afterward,  as  a  ray  of  light  which  only  glitter- 
ed for  a  moment  to  exhibit  more  clearly  the  depth  of  the 
abyss : 

Nessun  maggior  dolore 
Che  ricordarsi  del  tempo  felice 
Nella  miseria. 

The  two  are  blended,  because  the  same  fact  often  presents 
varying  aspects,  and  the  waning  light,  which  exhibits  the 
one,  brings  the  other  into  bolder  relief.  Lastly,  they  are 
blended,  because  an  accidental  link  is  often  found  to  con- 
nect a  terrible  misfortune  with  a  fantastic  incident — some 
singular  relation  which  involuntarily  and  unexpectedly 
takes  hold  upon  us,  and  which  our  spirit  not  unwillingly 
grasps  as  if  to  find  some  kind  of  unbending  to  regain  its 
equilibrium  and  recover  breath. 

Never  should  the  contrast  be  allowed  unless  under  the 
condition  that  the  dominant  impression,  which  is  chiefly 
to  be  regarded,  should  be  developed  and  not  destroyed, 
should  not  be  lost  sight  of,  but  rendered  more  lasting  and 
profound.  No  one  knew  this  better  than  Shakspeare,  no 
one  has  illustrated  it  by  more  numerous  and  beautiful  ex- 
amples. But  we  confess  we  can  not  find  them  in  "  Othel- 
lo." In  this  play  the  comic  element  is  purely  arbitrary ; 
it  is,  in  some  sort,  appended  to  the  tragic,  while  there  is 
no  intimate  relation  between  the  one  and  the  other,  no 
common  aim,  no  alliance  to  be  ratified  by  the.  deep  expe- 
riences of  the  soul. 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  271 

Let  Roderigo  be  eliminated  from  the  piece — a  genuine 
melodramatic  simpleton,  who  only  appears  that  he  may- 
serve  as  a  butt  to  Iago,  to  be  beduped  and  befooled  by 
him ;  you  can  do  so ;  what  Roderigo  does  might  be  done 
quite  as  well  by  any  one  else ;  no  one,  Iago  excepted, 
would  know  or  care  for  his  absence.  Let  Brabantio,  the 
firm  and  prudent  senator,  full  of  ability  and  self-posses- 
sion, dignified  and  respected,  be  true  to  his  proper  char- 
acter; let  him  not  be  transformed,  during  the  two  whole 
scenes,  merely  to  suit  the  whim  of  the  author,  into  a  G-e- 
ronte  or  a  Sganarelle.  Let  Cassio  fall  into  disgrace  with 
his  general  from  some  more  worthy  motive  than  that  sup- 
plied by  taking  a  glass  of  wine  at  an  unseasonable  time, 
which  would  also  be  much  more  in  keeping  both  with  his 
good  qualities,  and  with  the  defects  which  arc  attributed 
to  him.  Lastly,  erase  entirely  the  part  of  the  clown,  a 
part  so  false  that  the  French  imitator,  though  he  has  in 
general  adhered  most  conscientiously  to  the  original,  did 
not  think  himself  bound  to  preserve  it ;  all  that  is  comic 
in  the  piece  will  have  disappeared,  it  will  have  disappeared 
without  being  observed  at  all  by  any  of  the  essential  char- 
acters, without  producing  any  chasms  in  the  representa- 
tion of  the  principal  positions  ;  it  may  be  detached,  as  two 
objects  are  separated  which  have  nothing  in  common  but 
the  circumstance  of  their  both  being  in  the  same  vessel. 
This  is  assuredly  quite  sufficient  to  explain  the  impres- 
sion produced  upon  the  spectators  ;  they  might,  without 
any  injustice,  have  shown  a  greater  degree  of  severity, 
and  doubtless  they  would  have  done  so  if  they  had  had  to 
express  themselves  upon  the  work  as  one  entirely  unknown 
to  them.  But  they  were  placed,  as  we  have  already  said, 
in  a  more  rational  point  of  view  than  that  occupied  by  the 
French  translator  ;  they  had  come,  not  to  behold  a  mar- 


272  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

vel,  but  to  study,  with  a  true  and  living  sympathy,  an 
ancient  and  renowned  work.  They  were  unpleasantly 
surprised  at  first,  but  they  showed  patience,  and  gave  due 
credit.  One  circumstance,  we  think,  proves  most  con- 
vincingly the  freedom  of  their  minds  and  the  docility  of 
their  attention,  the  fact  that  this  deluge  of  tiresome  pleas- 
antries did  not  at  all  injure  the  effect  of  the  three  beau- 
tiful scenes  in  the  first  act — the  scene  in  which  Othello 
calmly  meets  the  violent  passion  of  Desdemona's  father ; 
that  in  which  he  explains  to  the  Senate  how  he  managed 
to  conquer  the  young  girl's  heart ;  and  that  in  which  Des- 
demona  herself  appears,  and  demands  to  be  permitted  to 
follow  the  Moor,  as  her  lord  and  master,  to  Cyprus. 

The  effect  of  Othello's  narration  was  irresistible.  This 
portion  of  the  play  is  translated  into  all  languages— -its 
beauty  is  perfectly  entrancing,  its  originality  is  unequaled. 
Even  La  Harpe  could  not  refuse  to  it  the  tribute  of  his 
admiration.  But  perhaps  the  scene  which  precedes  and 
that  which  follows  are  even  still  more  adapted  to  exhibit 
Shakspeare  in  all  his  greatness.  How  wonderful  a  paint- 
er of  human  nature  was  this  man  !  How  true  is  it  that 
he  has  received  from  on  high  something  of  that  creative 
power  which,  by  breathing  on  a  little  dust,  can  transform 
it  into  a  creature  of  life  and  immortality  ! 

In  the  interview  with  Brabantio,  Othello  only  utters 
some  fifteen  lines ;  before  the  Senate,  Desdemona  only 
about  thirty ;  and  yet  already  both  Othello  and  Desde- 
mona stand  before  us  as  complete  characters :  there  they 
both  are,  showing  themselves  without  anj  constraint,  in 
all  the  gracefulness  and  singularity  of  their  characters,  in 
all  their  native  and  imperishable  individuality.  Suppress 
the  rest  of  the  piece,  you  can  never  efface  Desdemona  and 
Othello  from  your  memory  ;  place  them,  if  you  please,  in 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  273 

another  order  of  circumstances,  use  your  utmost,  but  do 
not  think  you  can  obliterate  them  ;  we  know  them,  and 
we  know  beforehand  what  they  must  do  and  say. 

And  yet  what  complexities,  what  contrasts,  what  deli- 
cate shades,  belong  to  these  characters  ! 

In  Othello  there  are  two  individualities  :  in  the  first 
place,  there  is  the  savage,  who  has  for  a  long  time  re- 
mained alone ;  who  has  for  a  long  time  lived  the  life  of  a 
brute,  and  who  abandons  himself,  without  even  the  small- 
est indication  of  an  internal  struggle,  to  the  first  efferves- 
cence of  passion  which  crosses  his  soul ;  a  man  who  is  yet 
furnished  with  that  interior  goodness,  that  native  gener- 
osity which  the  instinct  of  our  poetic  fictions  has  been 
pleased  to  attribute  to  the  lion,  the  monarch  of  the  deserts. 
In  the  second  place,  there  is  the  civilized  man,  who  has 
become  such  by  war,  and  by  war  alone,  by  the  greatness 
of  his  courage,  by  that  self-possession  which  is  educated 
and  disciplined  by  constant,  habitual,  and  regular  famil- 
iarity with  danger.  In  the  amenities  of  a  peaceful  life  the 
civilized  man  is  naturally  and  spontaneously  uppermost ; 
Othello  is  calm,  confident  in  the  superiority  of  his  charac- 
ter, in  the  haughtiness  of  his  spirit,  in  the  magnitude  of 
his  services  ;  but  he  obeys  the  first  signal,  he  marches  at 
the  first  word  of  command — his  discipline  is  that  of  the 
soldier,  his  moderation  is  that  of  the  tamed  animal.  Ho 
has  captivated  Desdemona's  young  heart  by  an  unexpected 
turn  of  fortune,  the  very  possibility  of  which  belongs  solely 
to  the  region  of  poetry,  the  reality  of  which  is  inconceiv- 
able by  vulgar  minds  :  as  Iago  says,  ;'  What  delight  shall 
she  have  to  look  on  the  devil  ?"  But  this  stroke  of  fortune 
appeared  quite  simple  to  him,  an  unreflecting  and  unsus- 
picious being ;  it  has  not  cost  him  one  step,  not  one  mo- 
ment of  disquietude :  he  has  not  stopped  in  think  of  his? 


274  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

age,  his  appearance,  or  the  rudeness  of  his  manners.  He 
possesses  Desdemona  as  his  property,  as  he  possesses  his 
good  sword,  not  imagining  that  his  claims  to  her  can  be 
disputed  in  any  other  way  than  by  brute  force.  He  is, 
therefore,  at  rest.  If,  however,  he  gives  himself  up  to 
love;  love  is  yet  only  an  accident  of  his  existence ;  war  is 
his  life,  his  element,  the  stage  on  which  his  character  real- 
ly acts  ;  love  can  only  thwart  his  true  destiny ;  mean- 
while, he  neither  knows  how  to  rule  it,  nor  how  thorough- 
ly to  receive  its  influence. 

Desdemona,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  most  perfect  ide- 
al, the  purest  type  of  woman — of  woman  as  she  is  in  her- 
self, a  being  inferior  and  yet  divine,  subordinate  by  the  or- 
der of  human  life,  free  before  her  choice  is  made,  but  the 
slave  of  her  choice  when  once  she  has  made  it.  She  is 
composed  of  modesty,  tenderness,  and  submission.  Her 
modesty  is  unsullied,  her  tenderness  is  unbounded,  her 
submission  is  unlimited  and  absolute.  That  which  dis- 
tinguishes her  among  all  other  women  is  that  she  does  not 
so  much  possess  these  qualities  as  they  possess  and  absorb 
her.  In  her  soul  there  is  no  place  for  any  thing  else, 
whether  it  be  indifferent,  or  bad,  or  even  good  ;  there  is  no 
room  for  other  inclinations,  other  feelings,  or  even  other 
duties.  She  has  given  herself  up  entirely,  body  and  soul, 
thought  and  will,  hope  and  memory.  Nothing  remains  in 
her  nature  which  she  can  appropriate  to  any  thing  else 
whatever.  She  forsakes  her  father,  she  deceives  him,  she 
braves  him,  as  far  as  she  can  brave  any  thing — his  exas- 
perated feelings,  his  exterior  harshness — but  without  any 
exhibition  of  either  hesitation  or  repentance.  The  very 
appearance  of  the  object  of  her  choice  may  convince  us 
how  chaste  are  her  thoughts.  There  is  not  the  least  allu- 
sion, either  as  to  the  kind  of  life  that  awaits  her,  nor  as  to 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  275 

the  possible  price  which  she  may  one  day  pay  for  such  af- 
fection ;  from  the  first  she  is  resigned — resigned  to  all — 
certain  of  what  was  to  be  her  lot  in  the  world — certain 
that,  whatever  may  arrive,  she  will  never  cast  back  one 
look  of  regret — that  she  will  never  have  to  hesitate  be- 
tween two  courses. 

And,  in  order  that  we  may  be  put  in  possession  of  all 
this,  what  was  required  from  Shakspeare  ?  Four  strokes 
of  his  pen  complete  the  work.  See,  for  example,  how  he 
concludes  the  scene. 

The  Moor  has  been  dragged  from  the  very  steps  of  the 
altar  by  Brabantio ;  since  the  moment  of  their  union  he 
has  hardly  been  able  to  exchange  two  words  with  the  ob- 
ject of  his  best  love.  The  simple  and  pathetic  recital  of 
their  passion  has  disarmed  all  hearts  and  drawn  tears  from 
every  eye.  Desdemona  has  just  resisted  the  authority  of 
her  father  with  mildness  and  moderation,  but  with  invin- 
cible firmness.  The  duke  confirms  their  happiness — the 
father  delivers  his  daughter  up  to  the  Moor ;  all  the  sena- 
tors surround  them  and  wish  them  joy  ;  Desdemona  is  al- 
lowed to  rejoin  her  husband  at  Cyprus  as  soon  as  he  shall 
be  settled  there.     The  duke  then  says  to  the  old  soldier, 

"  The  affair  cries — haste  ! 
And  speed  must  answer  it.     You  must  hence  to-night.1' 

The  only  words  which  escape  Desdemona  are 

"  To-night,  my  lord  ?" 

Othello's  answer  is, 

"  With  all  my  heart." 

He  has  heard  the  sound  of  the  trumpet,  and  all  other 
thoughts  are  already  far  away.  Desdemona,  the  tender, 
bving  girl,  so  resolute  when  in  the  presence  of  her  father 


276  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

— Desdemona,  who  has  scarcely  entered  into  the  bonds  of 
wedlock,  casts  down  her  eyes,  and  follows  timidly  after 
her  husband,  without  uttering  one  word,  without  directing 
to  him  one  significant  look,  without  framing  any  reproach 
in  her  heart. 

Othello's  narrative  has  been  rapturously  applauded — as 
was  most  natural ;  but  the  united  impression  of  the  three 
scenes  must  obtain,  we  think,  an  admiration  of  an  entire- 
ly different  kind.  Imagine  a  man  who  has  lived  for  a  long 
time  in  rooms  lighted  only  by  wax-candles,  chandeliers, 
or  colored  glasses — who  has  only  breathed  in  the  faint, 
suffocating  atmosphere  of  drawing-rooms,  who  has  seen 
only  the  cascades  at  the  opera,  calico  mountains,  and  gai  - 
lands  of  artificial  flowers  :  imagine  such  a  man  suddenly 
transported,  one  magnificent  July  morning,  to  a  region 
where  he  could  breathe  the  purest  air,  under  the  tranquil 
and  graceful  chestnut-trees  which  fringe  the  waters  of 
Interlachen,  and  within  view  of  the  majestic  glaciers  of 
the  Oberland,  and  you  will  have  a  pretty  accurate  idea  of 
the  moral  position  of  one  accustomed  to  the  dramatic  rep- 
resentations which  formerly  occupied  our  stage,  when  be 
unexpectedly  finds  himself  witnessing  these  so  simple, 
grand,  and  natural  beauties. 

A  second  point  with  respect  to  which  the  involuntary 
feeling  of  the  French  public  has  found  itself  at  issue  with 
Shakspeare's  admirers  is  the  character  of  Iago.  This 
character,  which  is  the  concealed  agent  producing  the  ca- 
tastrophe of  the  piece,  is  greatly  celebrated  in  England 
an.l  elsewhere  ;  all  the  critics,  without  exception,  English, 
German,  or  French,  are  unwearying  in  their  eulogies  upon 
it.  When  acted,  it  appeared  to  us  that  this  character  was 
generally  disapproved,  and  that  in  a  very  marked  way, 
which  kept  on   increasing  with  ev&-y  act:    so  much  s«> 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  277 

that,  had  it  not  been  played  with  great  firmness  and  de- 
termination,  it  would  certainly  have  received  some  decid- 
ed rebuff.     Why  was  this  ? 

It  was  rather  curious,  at  the  end  of  every  act,  to  hear 
each  spectator  give  the  reason  of  his  repugnance,  the  cause 
}f  his  aversion.  One  thought  Iago  too  immoral ;  another, 
•jn  the  contrary,  thought  he  was  not  a  sufficiently  accom- 
plished hypocrite ;  he  should  not  boast  so  offensively  of  his 
wickedness,  said  a  third  censor ;  while  a  fourth  was  re- 
volted at  seeing  him  perpetrate  his  crimes  with  so  much 
pleasantry.     And  so  on. 

In  our  judgment,  the  part  was  disapproved  because  it  is 
in  itself  bad ;  because  it  is,  we  do  not  say  inconsistent, 
(for  what  is  more  natural  to  man  than  inconsistency  ?),bu' 
incoherent ;  because  the  parts  of  which  it  is  composed  do 
not  naturally  associate  ;  and  because,  in  regard  to  it,  we 
are  uncertain  which  idea  to  adopt.  Such,  at  least,  is  our 
mode  of  viewing  it.  Let  Shakspeare's  devotees  anathe- 
matize us,  if  they  feel  disposed. 

What  really  is  Iago  ?  Is  he  the  Evil  Spirit,  or  at  least 
his  representative  on  earth  ?  Is  Othello  right  when  he 
looks  down  to  his  feet  to  see  whether  they  are  not  cloven  ? 
Is  he  a  being  who  can  do  evil  from  the  mere  love  of  it,  and 
who  deliberately  breathes  a  poisonous  atmosphere  into  the 
union  of  Othello  and  Desdemona  solely  because  Desde- 
mona  is  a  being  of  angelic  purity,  and  Othello  is  a  loyal, 
brave,  and  generous  man. 

If  so,  why  ascribe  to  Iago  any  human  and  interested 
motives  ?  Why  are  we  pointed  to  his  low  cupidity,  the 
resentment  which  he  feels  for  an  injury  done  to  his  honor, 
Ids  envy  of  a  position  more  elevated  than  his  own  ?  Why 
must  we  see  him  plundering  poor  Roderigo,  as  Scapin  or 
Sbrigani  jiggle  the  purse  out  of  the  pocket  of  some  imbe- 


278  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

oile  ?  The  introduction  of  these  passions  destroy  every 
thing  that  is  fantastic  in  the  part.  The  devil  has  neither 
humor  nor  honor ;  he  has  neither  rancor,  nor  rage,  nor 
covetousness ;  he  is  a  disinterested  person ;  he  does  evil 
because  it  is  evil,  and  because  he  is  the  Evil  One. 

Iago,  on  the  other  hand,  is,  as  he  himself  boasts,  the 
type  of  an  egotist — a  man  who  is  perfected  in  the  art  of 
self-love — a  being  who  can  arrange  his  desires  in  hierarch- 
ical subordination,  according  to  the  degree  of  their  import- 
ance, and  then  so  plan  his  actions  as  that  they  shall  in- 
variably turn  out  to  his  infinite  satisfaction,  whatever  may 
be  the  consequences  to  other  people,  without  scrupulosity, 
without  remorse,  and  also  without  allowing  hims&lf  to  be 
diverted  from  his  aim  by  any  temptation  of  an  inferior 
order. 

Why,  then,  does  he  pursue,  at  the  same  time,  three  or 
four  different  ends,  which  are  to  him  of  very  unequal  im- 
portance ?  Why  does  he  undertake  successively  twenty 
different  projects  which  he  abandons  one  after  the  other  ? 
Why  especially  does  he,  on  every  occasion,  lavish  his  vil- 
lainy with  a  hundred  times  greater  prodigality  than  is  call- 
ed for  by  the  circumstances  ?  Jonathan  Wild  the  Grreat, 
notorious  in  the  lists  of  rascality,  was  much  more  expert 
when  he  said,  "  Be  chary  with  your  crimes  ;  they  are  far 
too  good  things  to  be  squandered  away  in  pure  waste." 

Moreover,  how  are  we  to  reconcile  the  different  ideas 
which  arc  given  us  of  this  character  ?  He  is  first  repre- 
sented to  us  as  an  intrepid,  intelligent  soldier,  worthy  of 
all  the  confidence  of  Othello  and  the  Senate,  who  might 
judiciously  have  been  promoted  to  a  high  rank  ;  and  then 
he  is  exhibited  before  us  as  a  sharper  of  the  first  quality, 
and  as  a  miserable  ruffian. 

He  has  a  profound  contempt  for  the  human  race,  and, 


SHAKSFEARE  IN  FRANCE.  279 

in  the  human  race,  he  has  a  profound  contempt  for  wom- 
en ;  he  shrugs  his  shoulders  at  the  bare  suggestion  of  the 
possibility  of  female  honor.  His  own  wife,  especially,  is 
an  insupportable  burden  to  him.  His  only  aim  in  the 
world  is  fortune — his  enjoyments  are  palpable  and  mate- 
rial— and  yet  we  are  required  to  see,  in  the  mere  suspicion 
of  an  old  intrigue  between  his  wife  and  Othello,  a  force 
powerfully  acting  upon  and  moving  his  soul ! 

He  is  presented  as  the  most  artful  villain  that  ever  ex- 
isted, and  yet  all  his  projects  are  so  ill-contrived,  so  clum- 
sy, so  destitute  of  foresight,  that  not  one  of  them  succeeds 
— neither  was  it  possible  that  they  could  be  successful. 

He  is  presented  as  an  impostor  of  fearful  penetration, 
capable  of  impenetrable  dissimulation  ;  and  yet  the  traps 
that  he  sets  are  so  palpable  that,  although  he  has  to  do 
with  an  idiot,  in  comparison  with  whom  any  pig-headed 
imbecile  would  be  a  marvel  of  perspicacity,  every  one  pos- 
sessed of  the  smallest  relic  of  sense  would  not  allow  him- 
self to  be  decoyed  by  them  for  the  space  of  two  minutes. 

This,  forsooth,  is  his  scheme  !  Desdemona  has  espoused 
Othello;  she  has  chosen  him,  as  he  is,  out  of  a  thousand 
others  more  worthy  of  her  ;  she  has  left  all  for  him ;  to  all 
appearance  she  loves  him;  Iago  himself  does  not  doubt  it; 
hardly  have  they  received  the  nuptial  benediction  before 
they  are  separated ;  Othello  sets  out  with  Cassio — observe, 
with  Cassio  ;  Desdemona  also  departs  for  Cyprus  ;  by  ac- 
cident the  two  parties,  who  had  left  Venice  at  different 
times,  arrive  in  Cyprus  the  same  day,  within  half  an  hour 
of  one  another.  To  the  knowledge  and  in  the  sight  of  all, 
Othello  included,  Cassio,  the  companion  of  his  voyage,  has 
not  been  able  to  speak  to  Desdemona  more  than  ten  min- 
utes on  the  public  road.  And  yet  on  the  afternoon  of  this 
same  day,  in  the  midrt  of  the  first  transports  of  a  union 


280  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE 

which  has  been  for  so  long  a  time  retarded,  Iago  takes  upon 
himself  to  persuade  the  amorous  Othello  that  Desdemona, 
the  gentle  Desdemona,  has  betrayed  him,  before  even  she 
has  belonged  to  him — that  she  has  delivered  up  her  heart 
and  her  person — to  whom  ? — to  Cassio,  who  has  been  able 
neither  to  see  her  nor  to  converse  with  her.  And  Iago  speaks 
of  his  passion  as  a  thing  already  ancient,  and  yet — and  yet 
as  a  thing  posterior  to  her  marriage  with  Othello ;  for  he 
represents  Cassio  as  exclaiming, 

"  Cursed  fate,  that  gave  thee  to  the  Moor  !" 

and  Iago  speaks  of  Cassio's  intrigue  with  innumerable  de 
tails  and  interminable  explanations. 

Which  is  the  greatest  simpleton,  the  man  who  conceives 
such  a  project,  or  the  man  who  allows  himself  to  be  en- 
trapped by  it  ? 

Will  it  be  said  that  he  succeeded  ?  He  succeeded  ac- 
cording to  the  representation  of  the  author  ;  but  what  wil) 
common  sense  say  of  the  matter  ? 

The  author  is  himself  successful :  but  why  ?  Because, 
such  is  the  intensity  and  vivacity  of  his  original  concep- 
tion, that  the  most  revolting  improbabilities,  the  most  in- 
conceivable absurdities,  pass  by  unperceived  ;  because  no 
one  is  so  ungracious,  no  one  has  time  to  notice  the  strata- 
gems of  the  drama.  It  is,  however,  another  thing  to  offer 
these  absurdities  to  be  admired  as  merits. 

And  yet  that  is  not  without  truth :  from  that  moment 
>vhen  the  first  insinuation  escapes  the  lips  of  Iago,  and 
roaches  the  ears  of  the  Moor — from  the  utterance  of  those 
fatal  words,  "  Ay,  well  said,  whisper  ;  with  as  little  a 
web  as  this  will  I  ensnare  as  great  a  fly  as  Cassio" — to 
that  awful  moment  when  the  curtain  falls  on  the  corpses 
Df  the  two  lovers,  the  speetator  is  in  a  state  of  breathless 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  281 

expectation.  You  might  hear  the  flight  of  a  gnat  across 
the  room,  and  those  are  ill-judged  spirits  whose  zeal  com- 
pels them  to  interrupt  by  their  applause  the  anxiety  which 
is  momentarily  increasing. 

In  that  first  word  all  has  been  said,  all  has  been  de- 
termined. Farewell  forever  to  Desdemona !  Farewell 
to  Othello  !  Desdemona  only  appears  henceforth  as  the 
innocent  bird  struggling  feebly  in  the  grasp  of  a  vulture, 
but  of  a  vulture  who  is  himself  furiously  struggling  under 
the  grasp  of  another  vulture,  and  who  avenges  himself  by 
his  treatment  of  his  unhappy  victim  for  the  frightful  tor- 
tures which  he  is  suffering  in  his  own  person. 

The  spectator  looks  upon  this  picture,  not  with  that 
restless  curiosity  which  passes  alternately  from  fear  to 
hope,  but,  if  we  may  say  so — and  we  do  it  fully  sensible 
that  there  are  important  differences — with  something  of 
that  inexpressible  anguish  which  absorbs  us  when,  in  a 
court  of  justice,  we  are  watching  the  vain  efforts  of  a 
criminal  who  is  being  hurried  along  to  a  fatal  and  inevi- 
table condemnation. 

Othello  has  never  thought,  has  never  had  occasion  to 
think,  how  strange,  how  incomprehensible  is  the  sentiment 
which  he  has  inspired  in  Desdemona ;  now  for  the  first 
time  he  thinks  of  it : 

"  Haply,  for  I  am  black, 
And  have  not  those  soft  parts  of  conversation 
That  charaberers  have ;  or,  for  I  am  declined 
Into  the  vale  of  years." 

One  irregular  taste,  Iago  suggests  to  him,  indicates  other 
irregularities.  Beyond  a  doubt  she  is  lost — "  she's  gone." 
This  first  suspicion,  to  use  Schlegel's  energetic  language, 
is  "  a  drop  of  poison  in  his  veins,  and  sets  his  whole  blood 
in  ihe  wildest  ferment."     The  savage  is  again  uppermost. 


282  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

The  civilized  portion  of  his  nature,  which  has  never  met 
him  in  this  region,  which  has  only  subdued  him  on  the 
field  of  battle,  is  powerless  to  hold  him  in  check.  The 
struggle  goes  on  for  some  moments ;  for  some  moments 
does  Othello,  the  warrior,  the  statesman,  the  lord  of  others 
and  of  himself,  attempt  to  treat  his  own  love  as  a  sportive 
flame,  his  jealousy  as  a  folly. 

"  Exchange  me  for  a  goat, 
When  I  shall  turn  the  business  of  my  soul 
To  such  exsufflicate  and  blown  surmises. 
*  #  *  *  * 

No,  Iago ; 
I'll  see  before  I  doubt;  when  I  doubt,  prove; 
And,  on  the  proof,  there  is  no  more  but  this — 
Away  at  once  with  love  and  jealousy. 

Look  here,  Iago ; 
All  my  fond  love  thus  do  I  blow  to  heaven. 
'Tis  gone !" 

But  his  efforts  are  vain  ;  his  defiance  is  fruitless  ;  at  the 

first  onslaught  he  sees  his  mighty  courage  fail,  at  the  first 

shock  of  battle  he  knows  himself  to  be  vanquished ;  he 

turns  a  last   fond  look  toward   that  which  has   so  long 

charmed  him  ;  he  remembers  dreamily  the  courser  and 

the  trumpet,  the  assault  and  the  victory : 

"  0  now  forever 
Farewell  the  tranquil  mind,  farewell  content ! 
Farewell  the  plumed  troop,  and  the  big  wars, 
That  make  ambition  virtue  !     0,  farewell ! 
Farewell  the  neighing  steed  and  the  shrill  trump, 
The  spirit-stirring  drum,  the  ear-piercing  fife, 
The  royal  banner ;  and  all  quality, 
Pride,  pomp,  and  circumstance  of  glorious  war ! 
And  0,  you  mortal  engines,  whose  rude  throats 
The  immortal  Jove's  dread  clamors  counterfeit, 
Farewell !     Othello's  occupation's  gone  !" 

After  this  cry,  all  the  struggle  within  him  ceases. 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  28.1 

In  proportion  as  jealousy  spreads  its  ravages  in  this 
spirit  which  is  already  wrecked,  we  can  watch  the  re- 
appearance under  all  the  most  hideous  forms  of  the  semi- 
brutish  nature  ;  we  may  see  its  growth  ;  we  may  hear  its 
roar ;  a  creature  not  to  be  controlled  by  reason,  deaf  to 
the  accents  of  truth,  insensible  to  utterances  of  tenderness, 
unapproachable  by  moral  evidence,  which,  in  the  wildness 
of  its  fury,  passes  from  one  extreme  to  another,  now  de- 
lighting, with  savage  joy,  in  its  own  detailed  recital,  in 
terms  of  the  most  revolting  barbarity,  of  the  outrage  which 
it  contemplates,  crying  out, 

"0,  blood,  Iago,  blood!" 

And  then,  in  conclusion,  falling,  without  knowing  how  or 
why,  from  rage  down  to  despair. 

Humanity  has  altogether  forsaken  him,  except  it  be 
in  his  frequently  returning  fits  of  emotion,  pity,  or  regret ; 
but  these  are  always  provoked  by  the  remembrance  of 
Desdemona's  charms — by  ideas  which  are  connected  with 
sensual  enjoyments  ;  and  perhaps,  also,  it  may  yet  lurk  in 
certain  glimmerings  of  a  rough  equity,  such  as  may  be 
found  under  the  Bedouin's  tent  or  in  a  bandit's  cavern : 
"  For  she  had  eyes  and  chose  me."  And  when  Iago  pro- 
poses to  him  to  "  strangle  her  in  her  bed,  even  the  bed 
she  hath  contaminated,"  he  replies,  "  Grood,  good  ;  the  jus- 
tice of  it  pleases  ;  very  good." 

There  is,  however,  no  trace  of  the  sentiments  which  he 
ought  to  have  imbibed  by  his  connection  with  civilized 
and  polite  society  ;  no  respect  for  himself  or  for  others,  no 
remembrance  of  kindnesses  ;  he  gives  directions  for  a  base 
act  of  assassination — that  of  Cassio  ;  he  strikes  Desdemo- 
na  brutally,  in  presence  of  the  messengers  of  the  Sen- 
ate  and  of  his  own  officers,  in  public,  and  in  his  own  pri- 


284  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

vate  interviews  with  her  ;  he  treats  her  as  the  most  aban- 
doned of  women,  heaping  upon  her  the  bitterest  sarcasms 
and  the  most  degrading  epithets. 

The  sight  of  an  heroic  soul  thus  debased  by  its  ferocity 
down  to  the  level  of  the  mere  animal  would  almost  of  ne- 
cessity contaminate  the  dignity  of  art,  had  not  the  poet 
brought  it  into  constant  contrast  with  the  graceful,  pure, 
and  truly  celestial  figure  of  Desdemona.  Never  has  any 
artist  portrayed  with  greater  delicacy  that  astonishment 
which  is  felt  by  an  innocent  soul  when,  for  the  first  time, 
the  overflow  of  its  warm  affection  is  repulsed  by  a  hard 
word  or  a  severe  look — its  timid  efforts  to  turn  the  repulse 
into  wanton  playfulness,  to  renew  a  tender  and  free  ex- 
change of  sentiment  and  thought,  to  exercise  for  some 
moments  that  pleasant  and  transient  ascendency  which 
shall  afford  the  young  spouse  many  bright  recollections  in 
days  yet  to  come. 

In  proportion  as  this  new  character  of  Othello  develops 
itself,  we  may  see  (so  to  speak) — through  that  transparent 
poetry  of  which  Shakspeare  alone  possesses  the  secret — 
the  mild  countenance  of  Desdemona  gradually  lose  its  se- 
renity. The  first  idea  that  presents  itself  to  her  mind  is, 
that  Othello's  roughness — that  roughness  for  which  she 
had  prepared  herself  long  before — has  somewhat  too  soon 
made  its  appearance.  But  her  heart  is  immediately  re- 
signed— she  has  an  excuse  ready  at  hand  : 

"Nay,  we  must  think  men  are  not  gods; 
Nor  of  them  look  for  such  observances 
As  fit  the  bridal." 

And  when  Othello  strikes  her  in  public,  she  is  content 
only  to  weep  and  to  say,  "  I  have  not  deserved  this." 

But  when  Othello  bursts  out  into  rage  against  her, 
when  he  loads  her  with  outrageous  reproaches,  when  ho 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  285 

reviles  her  as  a  shameless  prostitute,  her  voice  fails  her , 
the  blood  which  rushes  to  her  face  stifles  all  utterance  ; 
she  sinks  rather  under  the  confusion  of  hearing  such  lan- 
guage than  because  it  is  Othello  who  addresses  her  :  some 
feeble  sighs,  some  useless  protests,  are  her  only  defense  ; 
she  has  seen  her  fate  written  in  the  terrific  looks  of  her 
husband.  She  lowers  her  head,  and  directs  Emilia  to 
spread  upon  her  couch  her  wedding-dress,  in  which  she 
desires  to  be  enshrouded  ;  she  offers  her  breast  to  the  knife 
as  a  "stainless  sacrifice"  (another  of  Schlegel's  happy 
expressions),  as  a  lamb  which  has  been  accustomed  only 
to  bound  and  frolic  in  its  native  meadows,  and  which 
walks  to  the  altar  without  knowing  why,  and  licks  the 
hand  which  is  conducting  it  thither. 

This  it  is  precisely  which  explains  the  inexpressible 
charm  and  painful  interest  of  this  scene,  which  we  have 
already  alluded  to ;  a  scene  which,  placed  entirely  apart 
from  this,  would  transgress  the  proper  limits  of  a  work 
of  art 

Othello,  when  he  has  taken  leave  of  the  messengers  of 
the  Senate,  says,  with  a  rugged,  severe  tone  of  voice,  to 
Desdemona,  "  Get  you  to  bed  on  the  instant ;  I  will  be  re- 
turned forthwith ;  look  it  be  done."  Her  reply  is,  "  I  will, 
my  lord."  This  is  the  sentence  of  death,  and  she  knows 
it ;  but  not  even  a  thought  of  disobedience  enters  her 
mind  ;  she  does  not  dream  of  securing  the  least  assistance  : 
Othello  has  spoken. 

The  scene  in  which  she  undresses  herself,  before  retiring 
to  her  bed,  is  then  most  truly  for  her  that  respite  of  a  quar- 
ter of  an  hour  which  is  granted  to  criminals  before  they  are 
conducted  to  punishment.  In  vain  does  she  attempt  to 
suggest  a  different  mood  to  Emilia,  or  to  practice  decep- 
tion upon  herself  by  turning  her  thoughts  to  any  trifling 


286  SHAKSPEARri  IN  FRANCE. 

subjects  that  may  arise  :  the  inmost  conviction  of  her  soul 
rises  in  rebellion  against  every  word.  And,  for  the  agi- 
tated spectator,  this  scene  is  of  a  similar  character ;  he 
counts  the  minutes,  he  clings  to  the  least  thing,  he  asks 
impatiently  why  there  is  still  no  other  knot  tc  untie,  no 
other  clasp  to  unloose  ;  his  wishes  would  almost  urge  Mir 
to  take  hold  on  Desdemona's  robe  and  save  her  from  im 
pending  fate. 

Tragic  poets,  behold  your  master  !  learn  a  lesson  from 
him,  if  you  can  ! 

The  scene  in  which  the  Moor  kills  Desdemona  surprised 
the  public ;  but  their  surprise  was  not  of  long  duration, 
and  was  soon  changed  into  fullest  approval.  Accustomed 
as  they  were  to  see  this  scene  lengthened  out  in  Rossini's 
opera — to  watch  the  imposing  attitudes  of  Madame  Pasta, 
or  the  efforts  of  Madame  Malibran,  to  save  her  life,  the 
brevity  of  the  English  original  at  first  astonished  them. 
But,  at  the  same  time,  the  dialogue,  so  concise,  so  rapid, 
moving  so  directly  to  the  mark — those  ambiguous,  and, 
at  the  same  time,  distracted  words  which  Othello  mutters 
in  suppressed  tones  of  voice  ;  that  inexorable  determina- 
tion which  he  has  made,  and  which  he  executes  with  agi- 
tated haste,  with  bursting  heart  and  teeth  closely  set, 
hardly  daring  to  look  upon  his  victim,  but  without  even  a 
momentary  wavering — Desdemona's  entreaties,  short,  ten- 
der, timid :  so  much  so,  that  they  only  show  her  concern 
for  life  ;  her  replies,  in  which  all  the  bold  confidence  of  in- 
nocence declares  itself,  when  Othello  alludes  to  her  hand- 
kerchief, which  had  been  found  on  Cassio : 

"  He  found  it  there  !" 

and,  when  Othello  declares  to  her  that  Cassio  has  confessed 
his  crime : 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  287 

"  He  will  not  say  so." 
Words  of  simple  sublimity,  which  Mademoiselle  Mars  ren- 
ders with  an  accent  of  corresponding  simplicity  and  sub- 
limity ;  those  cries  from  without  which  hasten  the  fatal 
stroke,  and,  as  it  were,  nerve  the  arm  of  Othello — all  this 
was  most  deeply  felt,  applauded  as  far  as  the  emotion  which 
it  caused  would  allow,  and — if  we  may  say  so  without 
suggesting  any  comparison  that  would  be  invidious — the 
tragic  scene  appeared  as  superior  to  the  lyric  scene  as  the 
tragedy  of  Othello  itself  is  superior  to  thet  libretto  which 
is  sold  for  thirty  sous  at  the  entrance  of  the  Opera  Bouf- 
fon. 

Immediately  after  this  scene  an  incident  follows  which, 
we  are  perfectly  aware,  has  been  much  applauded  by  all 
critics,  which  is  greatly  celebrated  in  all  modern  poetical 
criticism,  which  is  even  strongly  commended  by  philoso- 
phers as  an  inimitable  touch  of  nature. 

Emilia  enters  the  chamber,  and  Desdemona  in  her  last 
moments  yet  finds  enough  strength  left  to  accuse  herself 
of  her  own  death,  and  to  exculpate  Othello : 

"Nobody:  I  myself :  Farewell! 
Commend  me  to  my  kind  lord  :  Oh,  farewell !" 

We  must  give  our  testimony  that  there  was  no  effect 
whatever  produced  by  these  words,  and  we  will  freely 
confess  that  we  should  always  doubt  whether  there  ought 
to  be  any. 

Let  the  critics  fulminate  against  us,  let  them,  if  they 
will,  lanch  their  thunder-bolts  against  us ;  but  it  has  al- 
ways appeared  to  us  that  this  short  passage  betrays  a  the- 
atrical artifice,  and  that  here  it  is  the  poet  who  speak*- 
to  us  through  the  mouth  of  his  character.  It  has  always 
appeared  to  us  that  this  last  expiring  utterance  of  Desde- 
mona involves  an  idea  far  too  complicated,  far  too  refined 


288  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

— a  prevision,  a  precaution,  which  harmonize  neither  with 
her  position,  nor  even  with  her  character. 

Since  the  day  of  her  marriage,  Desdemona  has  regarded 
herself  as  Othello's  property — as  a  thing  of  which  Othello 
is  the  absolute  master,  to  use  or  abuse  at  his  pleasure — 
as  a  slave  whom  he  may  beat  or  kill,  according  as  his 
fancy  may  lead  him ;  how  then  came  she  to  think  all  at 
once  that  Othello  could  run  any  risk  so  far  as  she  was  con- 
cerned, or  that  it  was  necessary  to  place  him  under  shelter 
from  a  criminal  prosecution  ?  Let  her  kiss  Othello's  hand 
when  dying  ;  this  is  quite  in  keeping  with  her  character — 
but  for  her  to  give  her  evidence  in  his  favor,  by  anticipating 
the  proceedings  in  a  court  of  justice,  is  not. 

Whether  we  are  right  or  wrong  is  yet  to  be  seen  ;  this, 
however,  is  of  little  importance.  For  the  fact  we  can  vouch 
— we  repeat  it — that  these  words  made  little  or  no  im- 
pression. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  can  hardly  say  enough  in  praise 
of  the  last  scene — a  scene  about  which  the  critics  say  lit- 
tle, but  which  is,  in  our  humble  opinion,  one  of  the  most 
admirable  in  the  whole  piece,  and  which  produced  an  im- 
pression worthy  of  its  transcendent  beauty. 

Hardly  has  Desdemona  breathed  out  her  last  sigh, 
scarcely  has  the  blind  fury  of  Othello  satiated  himself, 
when  the  scene  changes,  his  reason  returns,  the  light  of 
truth  bursts  upon  him  like  a  flood,  and  encounters  him  on 
all  sides.  Not  by  the  explanations  of  Emilia  is  he  unde- 
ceived, nor  even  by  the  confessions  of  Iago.  Half  an  hour 
previously  he  would  not  have  listened  to  any  thing  of  the 
kind,  but  now  he  anticipates  it  all. 

Even  as  he  had  attempted  at  first  to  summon  his  good 
sense  and  firmness  to  his  assistance,  against  the  first  as- 
saults of  jealousy,  so  now  ho  attempts  to  summon  his  fren- 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  289 

zy  and  blind  infatuation  to  his  assistance,  against  the 
clamorous  reproaches  of  his  reason.  He  cries  out  with 
affected  brutality,  when  speaking  of  Desdemona : 

"  She's,  like  a  liar,  gone  to  burning;  hell, 
'Twas  I  that  killed  her." 

He  calls  with  vaunting  impetuosity  upon  Iago, 

"Honest,  honest  Iago !" 
to  afford  him  shelter  and  protection ;  he  constrains  him- 
self to  recount  once  more  the  baseness  which  he  has  al- 
ways before  spoken  of  in  accents  of  wild  fury ;  but  now 
his  language  is  involuntarily  changed  : 

"  'Tis  pitiful ;  but  yet  Iago  knows 
That  she  with  Cassio  has  the  act  of  shame 
A  thousand  times  committed." 

Vain  efforts !  he  is  at  length  compelled  to  contemplate 
himself  as  he  really  is.  Deprived  of  a  being  of  spotless 
goodness,  whom  he  adored,  he  now  sees  himself  as  others 
see  him,  the  object  not  only  of  horror,  but  also  of  derision 
and  contempt.  Such  epithets  as  calumniator,  murderer 
assassin,  are  too  gentle  for  him — he  is  an  infuriated  mad 
man,  an  enraged  wild  beast,  a  bull  goaded  by  the  gad-fly, 
or  which  has  thrown  itself,  with  determination  to  trample 
under  its  feet  and  to  gore  with  its  horns,  upon  a  piece  of 
red  cloth  which  a  malicious  hand  has  placed  before  its 
eyes.  He  is  in  exactly  the  same  position  as  Ajax,  in 
Sophocles,  at  the  moment  when  he  recovers  his  senses, 
after  his  unhappy  mania  has  departed. 

Such  words  as 

"  0,  gull !     0,  dolt ! 
As  ignorant  as  dirt !" 

are  showered  down  upon  Othello  from  all  sides.  At  first 
he  holds  down  his  head,  abandoned  to  his  self-recrimina- 
tions— he  is  disarmed  like  a  child. 

N 


£90  SIIAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

"  I  am  not  valiant,  neither, 
But  every  pnny  whipster  gets  my  sword." 


But  immediately  he  adds,  and  this  relieves  him, 
And  then, 


"  But  why  should  honor  outlive  honesty? 
Let  it  go,  all." 


"  I  have  seen  the  day, 
That,  with  this  little  arm  and  this  good  sword, 
I  have  made  my  way  through  more  impediments 
Than  twenty  times  your  stop.     But  0,  vain  boast ! 
Who  can  control  his  fate  ?     'Tis  not  so  now. 
Be  not  afraid  though  you  do  see  me  weapon'd. 
Here  is  my  journey's  end — here  is  my  butt 
And  very  sea-mark  of  my  utmost  sail. 
Do  you  go  back  dismayed  ?     'Tis  a  lost  fear  : 
Make  but  a  rush  against  Othello's  breast, 
And  he  retires." 

Then  he  falls  upon  the  body  of  Desdemona,  uttering 
wild,  inarticulate  cries,  which  it  is  impossible  to  hear  with- 
out a  shudder  of  grief  and  sympathy. 

However,  this  paroxysm  of  humiliation  and  despair  only 
lasts  for  a  moment.  Othello  soon  recovers  his  self-posses- 
sion. In  proportion  as  reason  regains  its  empire  in  him, 
he,  in  his  turn,  regains  his  accustomed  ascendency  over 
all  the  circumstances  that  surround  him.  Two  or  three 
stern  and  significant  words  show  that  he  has  determined 
in  his  own  soul  what  course  he  shall  pursue.  He  seizes 
another  sword,  and  none  of  those  present  will  dare  now  to 
deprive  him  of  it.  In  the  presence  of  Cassio,  he  excuses 
himself  with  nobleness  and  simplicity ;  he  contemplates 
with  a  look  of  indifference,  in  which  there  is  a  mixture  of 
disdain,  the  preparations  made  to  secure  his  person  ;  and 
when,  at  last,  Ludovico  advances  toward  him,  and,  in  an 
already  half-intimidated  tone,  orders  him  to  be  in  readi- 
ness to  take  his  departure  to  Venice,  under  a  strong  es- 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  291 

cort,  in  order  to  appear  before  the  Senate,  he  interrupts 
him  with  the  words, 

"  Soft  you  ;  a  word  or  two  before  you  go." 

See  here,  again,  the  mighty  power  of  the  poet ;  how 
much  he  can  indicate  by  a  single  stroke.  Ludovico  shall 
depart  alone,  such  is  Othello's  determination ;  Othello  is 
not  to  go  at  all,  such  is  his  wish ;  no  one  is  to  dispose  of 
him  but  himself ;  he  will  not  hear  one  remark  on  this  point 
He  then  proceeds,  in  a  strain  of  dignified  sadness : 

"  I  have  done  the  state  some  service,  and  they  know  it ; 
No  more  of  that.     I  pray  you,  in  your  letters, 
When  you  shall  these  unlucky  deeds  relate, 
Speak  of  me  as  I  am  ;  nothing  extenuate, 
Nor  set  down  aught  in  malice ;  then  must  you  speak 
Of  one  that  loved,  not  wisely,  but  too  well  : 
Of  one  not  easily  jealous  ;  but,  being  wrought, 
Perplex'd  in  the  extreme  ;  of  one  whose  hand, 
Like  the  base  Indian,  threw  a  pearl  away 
Richer  than  all  his  tribe  ;  of  one  whose  subdued  eyes, 
Albeit  unused  to  the  melting  mood, 
Drop  tears  as  fast  as  the  Arabian  trees 
Their  medicinal  gum.     Set  you  down  this." 

This  said,  and  after  having  provided,  as  far  as  is  possi- 
ble for  him,  for  his  good  name,  he  returns  to  self-revenge 
— he  turns,  with  all  the  lofty  pride  of  his  indignant  spirit, 
against  that  miserable  body  which  he  is  about  to  chastise 
as  a  rebellious  slave,  as  a  ferocious  animal  which  has  dared 
to  trample  upon  its  master,  and  has  thereby  abandoned 
him  to  dishonor ;  and,  seeking  for  words  expressive  of  the 
direst  insult,  which  recall  at  once  what  he  was,  and  the 
works  of  his  life,  and  what  he  has  always  most  bitterly 
despised,  he  says, 

"  And  say,  besides,  that  in  Aleppo,  once, 
Where  a  malignant  and  a  turban'd  Turk 


292  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

Beat  a  Venetian,  and  traduced  the  state, 
I  took  by  the  throat  the  circumcised  dog, 
And  smote  him — thus." 

We  have  dilated  on  the  effect  produced  by  this  faith- 
ful and,  we  may  say,  literal  translation  of  "  Othello,"  be- 
cause this  effect  seemed  to  us  to  augur  very  favorably  for 
the  French  theatre.  The  piece  was  better  played  than 
any  of  the  master-pieces  of  our  dramatic  writers  is  at  this 
time  ;  it  has  been  better  judged  than  any  other  piece,  so 
far  as  we  know,  ever  has  been ;  for  it  has  been  judged 
sincerely,  without  prejudice,  without  any  spirit  of  parti- 
sanship, and  each  scene  has  been  estimated  according  to 
its  true  value. 

If  the  public  will  resolutely  maintain  this  freedom  of 
mind,  if  they  will  continue  henceforth,  on  every  renewed 
attempt,  to  applaud  only  what  seems  to  them  to  be  good, 
to  condemn  that  which  strikes  them  as  bad,  to  take  up  an 
attitude  of  indifference  to  things  which  are  in  themselves 
indifferent,  it  will,  by  these  means,  do  much  for  art,  and 
still  more  for  its  own  gratification.  It  will  save  us  the 
annoyance  of  an  inundation  of  those  imitations  of  the  ro- 
mantic school  of  the  drama  which  already  threaten  to  su- 
persede the  imitations  of  the  classical  school.  After  we 
have  tried,  for  a  hundred  years,  under  a  thousand  differ- 
ent names,  endless  variations  on  the  "  Andromaque,"  the 
"  Merope,"  and  the  "  Zaire" — variations,  however,  which 
are  devoid  of  all  the  beauties  which  belong  to  the  origin- 
als— we  shall  be  preserved  from  the  misfortune  of  expe- 
riencing, under  a  thousand  other  names,  and  perhaps  dur- 
ing another  hundred  years,  mere  repetitions  of  "  Macbeth," 
"Othello,"  or  "William  Tell,"  minus  the  real  beauties 
of  "Macbeth,"  "Othello,"  and  "William  Tell." 

The  beautiful  can  never  be  the  result  of  imitation :  what 


SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE.  293 

is  really  imitated  are  the  defects,  the  exterior  forms,  the 
mannerism  of  great  poets ;  and  when  the  public,  in  its 
unreflecting  enthusiasm  for  great  poets,  allows  itself  to 
applaud  even  their  faults,  or  merely  their  mannerism,  it 
is  sure  to  have  very  soon  more  than  enough  of  these. 

Let  those  who  are  attached  to  the  romantic  school  be 
well  assured  that  this  school  will  not  establish  itself  among 
us  by  means  of  reversed  reproductions  of  old  works  of  art 
in  a  thin,  transparent  disguise,  nor  by  counterfeits  foisted 
upon  us  under  the  pretense  of  being  borrowed.  Let  them 
traduce  the  beautiful  productions  of  foreign  literature,  line 
by  line ;  their  work  will  not  be  thrown  away ;  but,  in 
Heaven's  name,  let  them  not  produce  these  as  novelties, 
and  present  them  before  us  as  fruits  which  are  indigenous 
to  their  soil.  They  would  not  even  have  the  excuse  of 
their  colleagues  —  originality  must  always  be  original. 
And  let  not  the  public  allow  themselves  to  be  duped  — 
never  let  them  applaud  a  modern  author  merely  because 
he  can  dress  himself  up  in  the  plumage  of  a  great  master. 

And  let  the  friends  of  the  classic  school  be  well  assured, 
in  their  turn,  that  their  only  chance  of  safety  is  in  being 
able  to  rival  the  romantic  school.  It  is  now  already  dead — 
it  has  been  slain  by  the  copyists  ;  imitations  at  second  and 
third  hand  have  filled  us  with  an  insurmountable  disgust. 
It  will  revive — of  this  there  can  be  no  doubt ;  but  its  re- 
vival must  be  under  a  new  and  transformed  appearance, 
released  from  the  shackles  by  which  it  has  been  unreason- 
ably entangled,  free  in  its  movements,  prepared  to  enter 
upon  a  new  career. 

This  service  must  be  rendered  to  it  by  the  existing  ro- 
mantic school. 

That  will  be  a  happy  time  when  we  shall  be  able  to  see 
these  two  school*  flourishing  in  the  presence  of  each  other, 


294  SHAKSPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

in  a  reasonable  degree  of  independence,  governed,  each  foi 
itself,  by  the  laws  appropriate  to  its  true  nature,  and  dis- 
tributing with  lavish  hand  the  beauties  which  are  theit 
own  native  growths. 

But  it  will  be  said,  Do  you  then  believe  that  the  classic 
school  has  an  actual  existence — that  it  is  not  a  mistake, 
a  folly,  as  has  been  so  often  declared  ?  Assuredly,  we  be- 
lieve this.  Do  you  think  that  the  romantic  school  has  its 
laws,  and  that  it  does  not  consist  in  the  abnegation  of  all 
laws  ?  Far  from  it.  You  do  not  regard  as  laws  of  the 
classic  school  those  rules  about  which  so  much  noise  has 
been  made  ?     Not  at  all. 

Explain  yourself,  then.  "Where  is  the  line  of  demarka- 
tion  between  the  two  schools  to  be  drawn  ?  "What  is  your 
idea  of  the  classic,  what  of  the  romantic  school  ?  "What 
are  those  laws  of  which  you  speak  ? 

These  are  questions  which  we  would  very  gladly  an- 
swer ;  but  time  presses,  and  the  amount  of  space  which 
can  be  allotted  to  us  in  a  review  of  this  kind  is  already 
more  than  exhausted.  "We  must,  then,  of  necessity  delay 
our  answer  till  another  opportunity.  Moreover,  the  adher- 
ents of  the  romantic  school  have  now  a  favorable  breeze  ; 
and  as  besides,  they  do  not  lack  expertness  to  find  pretexts , 
the  occasion  will  not  long  be  wanting  to  us. 


HISTORICAL  DRAMAS. 


Shakspeare  did  not  write  his  historical  dramas  in  chro- 
no  ogical  order,  and  with  the  intention  of  reproducing  upon 
the  stage  the  great  events  and  characters  of  the  history  of 
England,  as  they  had  been  successively  developed  in  fact. 
He  had  no  idea  of  working  on  so  general  and  systematic 
a  plan.  He  composed  his  plays  just  according  as  some 
particular  circumstance  either  suggested  the  idea,  or  in- 
spired the  whim,  or  imposed  the  necessity  of  composing 
them,  never  troubling  himself  about  the  chronology  of  the 
subjects,  or  about  the  uniform  whole  which  certain  works 
might  form.  He  has  introduced  upon  the  stage  nearly  all 
the  history  of  England  from  the  thirteenth  to  the  sixteenth 
century,  from  John  Lackland  to  Henry  VIII. ;  beginning 
with  King  Henry  VI.  and  the  fifteenth  century,  then  as- 
cending to  King  John  and  the  thirteenth  century,  and  final- 
ly ending  with  Henry  VIII.  and  the  sixteenth  century, 
after  having  several  times  transposed  the  order  of  both  cen- 
turies and  kings.  The  following  is  the  dramatic  chronol- 
ogy of  his  six  historical  dramas,  according  to  his  most 
learned  commentators,  and  among  others,  Mr.  Malone : 

1.  The  First  Part  of  King  Henry  VI.  (1422-1461),  composed  in  1569 

2.  The  Second  Part  of  King  Henry  VI.,  composed  in  1591. 

3.  The  Third  Part  of  King  Henry  VI.,  composed  in  1591. 

4.  King  John  (1199-1216),  composed  in  1596. 


£96  SHAKSPEARE'S  HISTORICAL  DRAMAS. 

5.  King  Richard  II.  (1377-1399),  composed  in  1597. 

6.  King  Richard  III.  (1483-1485),  composed  in  1597. 

7.  The  First  Part  of  King  Henry  IV.  (1399-1413),  composed  in  1598 

8.  The  Second  Part  of  King  Henry  IV.,  composed  in  1598. 

9.  King  Henry  V.  (1413-1422),  composed  in  1599. 
10.  King  Henry  VIII.  (1509-1547),  composed  in  1601. 

But,  after  having  indicated  with  precision  the  chrono- 
logical order  of  the  composition  of  Shakspeare's  historical 
dramas,  we  must,  in  order  properly  to  appreciate  their 
character  and  dramatic  connection,  replace  them  in  the 
true  order  of  events.  This  I  have  done  in  the  notices 
which  I  have  written  on  these  dramas  ;  and  thus  alone 
can  we  really  hehold  the  genius  of  Shakspeare  unfolding 
and  giving  new  life  to  the  history  of  h;s  country. 


XING  JOHN. 

(1596.) 


In  choosing  the  reign  of  John  Lackland  as  the  subject 
of  a  tragedy,  Shakspeare  imposed  upon  himself  the  neces- 
city  of  not  scrupulously  respecting  history.  A  reign  in 
which,  as  Hume  says,  "  England  was  baffled  and  affronted 
in  every  enterprise,"  could  not  be  represented  in  its  true 
colors  before  an  English  public  and  an  English  court;  and 
the  only  recollection  of  King  John  to  which  the  nation  could 
attach  any  value  —  I  refer  to  Magna  Charta — was  not  a 
topic  likely  to  interest,  in  any  great  degree,  such  a  queen 
as  Elizabeth.  Shakspeare's  play  accordingly  presents  only 
a  summary  of  the  last  years  of  this  disgraceful  reign ;  and 
the  skill  of  the  poet  is  employed  to  conceal  the  character 
of  his  principal  personage  without  disfiguring  it,  and  to  dis- 
semble the  color  of  events  without  altogether  changing  it. 
The  only  fact  concerning  which  Shakspeare  has  distinctly 
adopted  a  resolution  to  substitute  invention  for  truth  is 
the  relation  of  King  John  to  France ;  and  assuredly,  all 
the  illusions  of  national  vanity  were  necessary  to  enable 
Shakspeare  to  describe,  and  the  English  to  witness,  Philip 
Augustus  succumbing  beneath  the  ascendency  of  John 
Lackland.  Such  a  picture  might  indeed  have  been  pre- 
sented to  John  himself  when — living  in  total  inactivity  at 
Rouen,  while  Philip  was  regaining  all  his  possessions  in 


298  SHAKSPEARE'S  HISTORICAL  DRAMAS. 

France — he  vauntingly  said,  "  Let  the  French  go  on ;  1 
will  retake  in  a  day  what  it  has  cost  them  years  to  ac- 
quire." All  that  which,  in  Shakspeare's  play,  is  relative 
to  the  war  with  France,  seems  to  have  been  invented  in 
justification  of  this  gasconade  of  the  most  cowardly  and 
insolent  of  princes. 

In  the  rest  of  the  drama,  the  action  itself,  and  the  in- 
dication of  facts  which  it  was  impossible  to  dissemble,  are 
sufficient  to  give  us  a  glimpse  of  a  character  into  the  in- 
most recesses  of  which  the  poet  did  not  venture  to  pene- 
trate, and  into  which  he  could  not  have  penetrated  with- 
out disgust.  But  such  a  personage,  and  so  constrained  a 
manner  of  description,  were  not  capable  of  producing  a 
great  dramatic  effect ;  and  Shakspeare  has  therefore  con- 
centrated the  interest  of  his  drama  upon  the  fate  of  young 
Arthur,  and  has  devolved  upon  Faulconbridge  that  orig- 
inal and  brilliant  part  in  which  we  feel  that  he  takes  de- 
light, and  which  he  never  refuses  to  introduce  into  any  of 
his  works. 

Shakspeare  has  presented  the  young  Duke  of  Bretagne 
to  us  at  that  age  at  which  it  first  became  necessary  to  as- 
sert his  rights  after  the  death  of  King  Richard — that  is, 
at  about  twelve  years  old.  We  know  that  at  the  period 
to  which  Shakspeare's  tragedy  refers  Arthur  was  about 
twenty-five  or  twenty-six,  and  that  he  was  already  mar- 
ried, and  an  object  of  interest  from  his  amiable  and  brill- 
iant qualities,  when  he  was  taken  prisoner  by  his  uncle ; 
but  the  poet  felt  how  much  more  interesting  the  exhibition 
of  weakness  in  conflict  with  cruelty  became  when  exem- 
plified in  a  child.  And  besides,  if  Arthur  had  not  been  a 
child,  it  would  not  have  been  allowable  to  put  forward 
his  mother  in  his  place  ;  and,  by  suppressing  Constance, 
Shakspeare  would,  perhaps,  have  deprived  us  of  the  most 


KING  JOHN.  ^99 

pathetic  picture  that  he  ever  drew  of  maternal  love— one 
of  the  feelings  of  which  he  evinced  the  profoundest  appre- 
ciation. 

But,  at  the  same  time  that  he  rendered  the  fact  more 
touching,  he  lessened  the  horror  which  it  inspires  by  di- 
minishing the  atrocity  of  the  crime.  The  most  generally 
received  opinion  is,  that  Hubert  de  Bourg,  who  had  prom- 
ised to  put  Arthur  to  death  only  that  he  might  save  him, 
had,  in  fact,  deceived  the  cruelty  of  his  uncle  by  false  re- 
ports and  a  pretended  burial ;  but  that  John,  on  being  in- 
formed of  the  truth,  first  withdrew  Arthur  from  the  Cas- 
tle of  Falaise,  in  which  he  was  confined  under  Hubert's 
guardianship,  and  transferred  him  to  the  Castle  of  Rouen, 
whither  he  proceeded  at  night,  and  by  water,  had  his 
nephew  conveyed  into  his  boat,  stabbed  him  with  his  own 
hand,  tied  a  stone  to  his  body,  and  threw  him  into  the  river 
Such  an  image  would  naturally  be  rejected  by  a  true  poet. 
Independently  of  the  necessity  of  absolving  his  principal 
personage  of  so  odious  a  crime,  Shakspeare  perceived  how 
much  more  dramatic  and  conformable  to  the  general  na- 
ture of  man  the  cowardly  remorse  of  John,  when  he  per- 
ceived the  danger  in  which  he  was  plunged  by  the  report 
of  his  nephew's  death,  would  be,  than  this  excess  of  bru- 
tal ferocity ;  and  certainly,  the  fine  scene  between  John 
and  Hubert,  after  the  withdrawal  of  the  lords,  is  amply 
sufficient  to  justify  his  choice.  Besides,  the  picture  which 
Shakspeare  presents  had  too  strong  a  hold  upon  his  imag- 
ination, and  had  acquired  too  much  reality  in  his  eyes, 
for  him  not  to  be  conscious  that,  after  the  incomparable 
scene  in  which  Arthur  obtains  his  safety  from  Hubert,  it 
would  be  impossible  to  endure  the  idea  of  any  human  be- 
ing laying  hands  on  this  poor  child,  and  forcing  him  again 
to  undergo  the  agony  from  which  he  has  just  escaped 


300  SHAKSPEARE'S  HISTORICAL  DRAMAS. 

The  poet  also  knew  that  the  sight  of  Arthur's  death,  al- 
though less  cruel,  would  he  intolerahle  if  accompanied,  in 
the  minds  of  the  spectators,  hy  the  anguish  which  the 
thought  of  Constance  would  add  to  it ;  and  he  is,  there- 
fore, careful  to  inform  us  of  the  death  of  the  mother  be- 
fore making  us  witness  the  death  of  the  child  ;  just  as  if, 
when  his  genius  had  conceived,  to  a  certain  degree,  the 
painfulness  of  any  particular  feeling  or  passion,  his  tender 
heart  became  alarmed  at  it,  and  sought  to  modify  it  for 
its  own  sake.  Whatever  misfortune  Shakspeare  may  de- 
pict, he  almost  invariably  leads  us  to  anticipate  a  still 
greater  misfortune,  before  which  his  mind  recoils,  and 
which  he  spares  us  the  unhappiness  of  beholding. 

The  character  of  the  bastard  Faulconbridge  was  sug- 
gested to  Shakspeare  by  a  drama  of  Rowley's,  entitled 
"  The  Troublesome  Reign  of  King  John,"  which  appeared 
in  1591,  that  is,  five  years  before  Shakspeare's  play,  which 
was  composed,  it  is  believed,  in  1596.  Rowley's  play  was 
reprinted  in  1611,  with  Shakspeare's  name  attached  to  it 
— rather  a  common  trick  of  the  booksellers  and  publishers 
of  that  time.  This  circumstance,  and  the  extent  to  which 
Shakspeare  has  borrowed  from  this  work,  has  led  several 
critics  to  believe  that  he  had  had  a  hand  in  it,  and  that 
"  The  Life  and  Death  of  King  John"  was  only  a  recast  of 
the  first  work  ;  but  it  does  not  appear  that  this  supposition 
has  any  foundation  in  fact. 

According  to  his  custom,  while  borrowing  whatever  he 
pleased  from  Rowley,  Shakspeare  has  added  great  beau- 
cies  to  his  original,  and  has  retained  nearly  all  its  errors. 
Thus,  Rowley  supposed  that  it  was  the  Duke  of  Austria 
who  killed  Richard  Coeur-de-Lion,  and  at  the  same  time 
he  makes  the  Duke  of  Austria  perish  by  the  hand  of  Faul- 
ronbridge,  an  historical  personage  whom  Matthew  Paris 


KING  JOHN.  30; 

mentions  under  the  name  of  Falcasius  de  Breaute,  the 
natural  son  of  King  Richard,  and  who,  according  to  Hol- 
inshed,  slew  the  Viscount  of  Limoges,  in  revenge  for  tho 
death  of  his  father,  who,  it  is  well  known,  was  killed  at 
the  siege  of  Chaluz,  a  fortress  belonging  to  that  nobleman. 
In  order  to  reconcile  Holinshed's  version  with  his  own, 
Rowley  has  made  Limoges  the  family  name  of  the  Duke 
of  Austria,  whom  he  designates  as  "  Limoges,  duke  of 
Austria."  Shakspeare  has  copied  him  exactly  in  this  part 
of  his  story.  He  also  attributes  the  murder  of  Richard  to 
the  Duke  of  Austria ;  in  his  play,  also,  the  Duke  of  Aus- 
tria falls  by  the  hand  of  Faulconbridge ;  and,  as  regards 
the  confusion  of  the  two  personages,  it  would  appear  that 
Shakspeare  was  as  unscrupulous  about  it  as  Rowley,  if 
we  may  judge  from  Constance's  speech  to  the  Duke  of 
Austria  in  the  first  scene  of  the  third  act,  in  which  she 
addresses  him  as  "  0  Lymoges  !  0  Austria  J"  The  char- 
acter of  Faulconbridge  is  one  of  those  creations  of  Shaks- 
peare's  genius  in  which  we  discover  the  nature  of  all  times 
and  of  all  countries.  Faulconbridge  is  the  true  soldier, 
the  soldier  of  fortune,  personally  recognizing  no  inflexible 
duty  but  that  which  he  owes  to  the  chief  to  whom  he  has 
devoted  his  life,  and  from  whom  he  has  received  the  re- 
wards of  his  valor ;  and  yet  a  stranger  to  none  of  those 
feelings  upon  which  other  duties  are  founded,  and  even 
obeying  the  instincts  of  natural  rectitude  whenever  they 
do  not  come  into  contradiction  with  the  vow  of  implicit 
fidelity  and  submission  to  which  his  existence^  and  even 
his  conscience,  is  devoted.  He  will  be  humane,  generous, 
and  just,  whenever  this  vow  does  not  ordain  him  to  prac- 
tice inhumanity,  injustice,  and  bad  faith ;  he  forms  a  cor 
rect  judgment  of  the  things  to  which  he  is  subject,  and  is 
in  error  only  regarding  the  necessity  of  subjecting  himself 


302  SHAKSPEARE'S  HISTORICAL  DRAMAS. 

to  them.  He  is  as  skillful  as  he  is  brave,  and  does  not 
alienate  his  judgment  while  renouncing  its  guidance :  he 
is  a  man  of  powerful  nature,  whom  circumstances,  and 
the  necessity  of  employing  his  activity  in  some  way  or 
other,  have  reduced  to  a  moral  inferiority,  from  which  a 
calmer  disposition,  and  profounder  reflections  upon  the  true 
destination  of  man,  would  most  probably  have  preserved 
him.  But,  with  the  fault  of  not  having  sought  the  ob- 
jects of  his  fidelity  and  devotion  in  a  sufficiently  lofty 
sphere,  Faulconbridge  possesses  the  eminent  merit  of  un- 
changeable fidelity  and  devotion,  two  singularly  lofty  vir- 
tues, both  as  regards  the  feeling  from  which  they  emanate 
and  the  great  actions  of  which  they  may  be  the  source. 
His  language  is,  like  his  conduct,  the  result  of  a  mixture  of 
good  sense  and  ardor  of  imagination,  which  frequently  in- 
volves his  reason  in  a  jumble  of  words  very  natural  to  men 
of  Faulconbridge's  profession  and  character ;  being  inces- 
santly exposed  to  the  shock  of  the  most  violent  scenes  and 
actions,  they  can  not  find  in  ordinary  language  the  means 
of  conveying  the  impressions  which  compose  the  habit  of 
their  life. 

The  general  style  of  the  play  is  less  firm  and  decided  in 
color  than  that  of  several  other  tragedies  by  the  same  poet ; 
the  contexture  of  the  work  is  also  rather  vague  and  feeble, 
but  this  is  the  result  of  the  absence  of  one  leading  idea, 
which  should  continually  direct  all  the  parts  of  the  drama 
toward  the  same  centre.  The  only  idea  of  this  kind  which 
can  be  discerned  in  "  King  John"  is  the  hatred  of  foreign 
dominion  gaining  the  victory  over  the  hatred  of  tyrannical 
usurpation.  In  order  for  this  idea  to  be  salient,  and  con- 
stantly to  occupy  the  mind  of  the  spectator,  it  would  bo 
necessary  for  it  to  be  reproduced  in  every  direction,  and 
For  every  thing  to  contribute  to  give  conspicuity  to  1ho 


KING  JOHN.  303 

misfortune  of  a  conflict  between  the  two  feelings.  But 
this  plan,  which  would  be  rather  vast  for  a  dramatic  work, 
was,  moreover,  irreconcilable  with  the  reserve  which  Shaks- 
peare  had  imposed  upon  himself  with  regard  to  the  char- 
acter if  the  king ;  and  thus  a  great  part  of  the  play  is 
passed  in  discussions  of  but  little  interest,  and  in  the  re- 
mainder the  events  are  not  well  arranged ;  the  lords 
change  sides  too  lightly,  first  on  account  of  the  death  of 
Arthur,  and  afterward  from  motives  of  personal  alarm, 
which  does  not  present  their  return  to  the  cause  of  En- 
gland under  a  sufficiently  honorable  point  of  view.  The 
poisoning  of  King  John,  moreover,  is  not  prepared  with 
that  care  which  Shakspeare  usually  bestows  upon  the 
foundation  and  justification  of  the  slightest  circumstances 
in  his  dramas  ;  and  there  is  nothing  to  indicate  the  mo- 
tive which  could  have  led  the  monk  to  commit  so  desper- 
ate an  action,  as  at  that  moment  John  was  reconciled  to 
Rome.  The  tradition  from  which  Shakspeare  has  bor- 
rowed this  apocryphal  anecdote  ascribes  the  monk's  con- 
duct to  a  desire  to  revenge  an  offensive  epithet  which  the 
king  had  used  regarding  him.  We  can  not  tell  what  could 
have  induced  Shakspeare  to  adopt  this  story,  which  he  has 
turned  to  so  little  account;  perhaps  he  desired  to  mingle 
with  John's  last  moments  something  of  infernal  suffering, 
without  having  recourse  to  remorse,  which,  in  fact,  would 
not  have  been  in  more  accordance  with  the  real  charactei 
of  this  contemptible  prince  than  with  the  modified  delin* 
nation  of  it  which  the  poet  has  supplied. 


KING    RICHARD    II. 

(1597.) 


In  proportion  as  Shakspeare  advances  toward  the  more 
modern  times  of  the  history  of  his  country,  the  chronicles 
upon  which  he  relies  for  information  coincide  more  exact- 
ly with  historical  truth;  and  already,  in  "  The  Life  and 
Death  of  King  Richard  III.,"  the  details  furnished  him 
by  Holinshed  differ  only  in  a  slight  degree  from  the  his- 
torical data  which  have  been  handed  down  to  us  as  authen- 
tic. "With  the  exception  of  the  queen,  who  is  a  pure  in- 
vention of  the  poet's  imagination,  and  passing  over  the 
chronological  disorder  occasioned  by  Shakspeare's  negli- 
gence in  keeping  events  at  a  proper  distance  from  each 
other,  the  facts  contained  in  this  tragedy  differ  in  no  re- 
spect from  historical  narratives  of  the  same  period,  except 
with  regard  to  the  kind  of  death  which  Richard  suffered. 
Holinshed,  who  copied  other  chroniclers,  supplied  Shaks- 
peare with  the  story  which  he  has  followed  ;  but  the  most 
probable  opinion,  and  that  which  is  in  most  accordance 
with  the  care  taken  publicly  to  expose  Richard's  body  after 
his  death,  is,  that  he  was  left  to  die  of  hunger.  This  at- 
tention to  evade,  at  least,  the  material  appearances  of 
crime,  while  caring  little  to  avoid  suspicion,  was  begin- 
ning to  be  introduced  into  the  ferocious  politics  of  these 
times  ;  and  Richard  himself  had  stifled,  beneath  a  mat- 


KING  RICHARD  II.  30.1 

tress,  the  Duke  of  Gloucester,  whom  he  held  prisoner  in 
Calais,  and  had  afterward  announced  that  he  had  died  of 
an  attack  of  apoplexy.  Besides  Shakspeare's  tendency  to 
follow  implicitly  the  historical  guide  whom  he  had  once 
adopted,  this  version  allowed  him  to  preserve  to  the  char- 
acter of  Bolingbroke  that  interest  with  which  he  has  in- 
vested it,  hoth  in  this  drama  and  in  the  two  parts  of 
"  King  Henry  IV."  The  choice  between  different  versions 
of  the  same  story,  is,  moreover,  the  least  contested  and  the 
least  contestable  privilege  of  dramatic  authors. 

The  tragedy  of  "Richard  II."  is  then,  generally  speak- 
ing, sufficiently  conformable  to  history ;  and  the  manner 
in  which  the  poet  has  described  the  deposition  of  Richard, 
and  the  accession  to  the  throne  of  Henry  of  Lancaster,  ap- 
pears singularly  in  accordance  with  what  Hume  says  on 
the  subject :  "  Henry  IV.  became  king,  nobody  could  tell 
how  or  wherefore."  But  it  would  be  necessary  to  be  like 
Hume,  entirely  unacquainted  with  the  sight  of  revolu- 
tions, to  be  puzzled  to  say  how  and  why  the  Duke  of  Lan- 
caster, after  having  acted  for  some  time  in  the  name  of 
the  king,  whom  he  kept  prisoner,  finally  established  him- 
self without  difficulty  in  his  place.  Shakspeare  did  not 
think  it  necessary  to  explain  this ;  Richard  left  Flint  Cas- 
,  tie  with  the  title  of  king,  in  the  retinue  of  Bolingbroke ; 
and  we  next  see  him  signing  his  own  deposition.  The 
poet  does  not  in  any  way  indicate  to  us  what  has  passed ; 
but  in  order  not  to  guess  how  the  fall  of  Richard  was  ac- 
complished it  would  be  necessary  for  us  to  have  very  ill 
understood  the  picture  presented  to  us  of  his  first  degrada- 
tion ;  and  the  conversation  of  the  gardener  with  his  serv- 
ants completes  the  description  by  revealing  to  us  its  ef- 
fects upon  public  opi  nion.  It  was  a  characteristic  of  Shaks- 
peare's art  to  make  us  present  at  every  part  of  the  event ; 


306  •  SHAKSPEARE'S  HISTORICAL  DRAMAS. 

and  he  always  transports  us  to  the  scene  in  which  he 
strikes  his  most  decisive  blows,  while  at  a  distance  from 
our  view  the  action  pursues  its  course,  and  contents  it 
self  with  meeting  us  again  when  it  has  reached  its  con- 
summation. 

Although  this  tragedy  is  entitled  "  The  Life  and  Death 
of  King  Richard  II.,"  it  only  comprises  the  last  two  years 
of  that  prince's  reign,  and  contains  only  a  single  event, 
namely,  his  downfall — the  catastrophe  toward  which  ev- 
ery circumstance  tends  from  the  very  outset  of  the  play. 
This  event  has  been  considered  under  different  aspects, 
and  a  rather  singular  anecdote  has  revealed  to  us  the  ex- 
istence of  another  tragedy  on  the  same  subject,  anterior, 
as  it  would  appear,  to  Shakspeare's  drama,  and  treated  in 
an  altogether  different  point  of  view.  Some  of  the  parti- 
sans of  the  Earl  of  Essex,  on  the  day  preceding  his  extrav- 
agant enterprise,  procured  the  performance  of  a  tragedy 
in  which,  as  in  Shakspeare's  drama,  Richard  II.  was  de- 
posed and  put  to  death  on  the  stage.  The  actors  having 
represented  to  them  that  the  play  was  entirely  out  of  fash- 
ion, and  would  not  attract  a  sufficient  audience  to  cover 
the  expense  of  the  performance,  Sir  G-illy  Merrick,  one  of 
the  confederates,  gave  them  forty  shillings  above  the  re- 
ceipts. This  fact  was  mentioned  at  the  trial  of  Sir  Gilly, 
and  served  to  procure  his  condemnation. 

The  conspiracy  of  the  Earl  of  Essex  occurred  in  1601, 
and  Shakspeare's  tragedy  appeared,  it  is  believed,  in  the 
year  1597.  Notwithstanding  this  precedence,  no  one  will 
be  disposed  to  suspect  that  one  of  Shakspeare's  plays  could 
have  figured  in  a  factious  enterprise  against  Elizabeth. 
Besides,  the  drama  in  question  seems  to  have  been  known 
by  the  name  of  "  Henry  IV.,"  and  not  by  that  of  "Rich- 
ard II. ;"  and  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  history 


KING   RICHARD  II.  307 

of  Henry  IV.  was  its  true  subject,  and  Richard's  death 
only  an  incident.  But  in  order  to  remove  every  kind  of 
doubt,  it  is  sufficient  to  read  Shakspeare's  tragedy ;  the 
doctrine  of  divine  right'  is  incessantly  presented  in  it,  ac- 
companied by  that  interest  which  is  excited  by  the  aspect 
of  the  misfortunes  of  fallen  greatness.  If  the  poet  has  not 
given  to  the  usurper  that  odious  physiognomy  which  pro- 
duces hatred  and  the  dramatic  passions,  it  is  sufficient  to 
read  history  to  understand  the  cause  of -this. 

This  vagueness  of  the  moral  aspect  under  which  men 
and  things  present  themselves,  and  which  does  not  allow 
the  feelings  to  attach  themselves  vigorously  to  any  one  ob- 
ject, because  they  can  rest  upon  nothing  with  satisfaction, 
is  not  a  fact  peculiar  to  Richard  II.  and  his  destiny,  in  the 
history  of  these  disastrous  times.  Parties  ever  at  conflict 
with  each  other  for  the  supreme  power,  vanquished  by 
turns,  and  always  deserving  their  defeat,  without  any  one 
of  them  having  ever  deserved  victory,  do  not  present  a 
very  dramatic  spectacle,  nor  one  very  well  calculated  to 
elevate  our  feelings  and  faculties  to  that  degree  of  exalta- 
tion which  is  one  of  the  noblest  objects  of  art.  Pity  is,  in 
such  a  case,  often  wanting  to  indignation,  and  esteem  al- 
most always  to  pity.  "We  have  no  difficulty  in  finding  out 
the  crimes  of  the  strongest,  but  we  look  with  anxiety  for 
the  virtues  of  the  weakest ;  and  the  same  effect  is  pro- 
duced when  the  circumstances  are  changed  :  follies,  dep- 
.  redations,  injustice,  and  violence  have  led  to  Richard's 
downfall,  and  have  even  rendered  it  necessary ;  and  they 
detach  us  from  him  by  the  two-fold  reason  that  we  behold 
him  working  out  his  own  ruin,  and  that  we  find  it  impos- 
sible to  save  him.  It  would,  however,  be  easy  to  discover 
at  least  as  many  crimes  in  the  party  which  triumphs  over 
his  degradation.     Shakspeare  might,  with  little  trouble, 


308  SHAKSPEARE'S  HISTORICAL  DRAMAS. 

have  amassed  against  the  rebels  those  treasures  of  indig- 
nation which  would  animate  all  hearts  in  favor  of  the  le- 
gitimate sovereign ;  hut  one  of  the  principal  characteris 
tics  of  Shakspeare's  genius  is  a  truthfulness,  I  may  say 
a  fidelity  of  observation,  which  reproduces  nature  as  it  is 
and  time  as  it  actually  occurs.  History  supplied  him  nei 
ther  with  heroes  superior  to  their  fortune,  nor  with  inno 
cent  victims,  nor  with  instances  of  heroic  devotion  or  of 
imposing  passion ;  he  merely  found  the  very  strength  of 
his  characters  employed  in  the  service  of  those  interests 
which  degrade  them — perfidy  considered  as  a  means  of 
conduct,  treason  almost  justified  by  the  dominant  princi- 
ple of  personal  interest,  and  desertion  almost  rendered  le- 
gitimate by  the  consideration  of  the  risk  that  would  be 
run  by  remaining  faithful ;  and  all  this  he  has  described. 
It  is,  in  truth,  the  Duke  of  York,  a  personage  of  whose 
incapacity  and  nullity  we  are  informed  by  history,  whom 
Shakspeare  has  selected  to  represent  this  ever-ardent  de- 
votedness  to  the  man  who  governs,  this  facility  in  trans- 
ferring his  obedience  from  rightful  to  actual  power,  and 
vice  versa,  merely  allowing  himself,  for  his  honor,  to  shed 
a  few  solitary  tears  on  behalf  of  the  monarch  whom  he 
has  abandoned.  To  any  one  who  has  not  witnessed  the 
sport  of  fortune  with  empires,  this  personage  would  be 
only  comic  ;  but  to  any  one  who  has  beheld  such  changes, 
does  he  not  possess  alarming  truthfulness  ? 

Surrounded  by  characters  of  this  kind,  whence  could 
Shakspeare  derive  that  pathetic  element  which  he  would 
have  loved  to  infuse  into  the  spectacle  of  fallen  greatness  ? 
He  who  had  given  old  Lear,  in  his  misery,  so  many  noble 
and  faithful  friends,  could  not  find  one  for  Richard  ;  the 
king  had  fallen,  stripped  and  naked,  into  the  hands  of  the 
poet,  as  he  fell  from  his  throne  ;  and  in  himself  alone  the 


KING  RICHARD  II.  309 

poet  has  been  obliged  to  seek  all  his  resources  ;  the  char- 
acter of  Richard  II.  is,  therefore,  one  of  the  profoundest 
conceptions  of  Shakspeare.  J 

The  commentators  have  had  a  great  discussion  as  to 
whether  it  was  from  the  court  of  James  or  of  Elizabeth 
that  Shakspeare  derived  the  maxims  which  he  so  fre- 
quently professes  in  favor  of  divine  right  and  absolute 
power.  Shakspeare  derived  them  ordinarily  from  his  per- 
sonages themselves  ;  and  it  was  sufficient  for  him  here  to 
have  to  describe  a  king  already  seated  on  the  throne 
Richard  never  imagined  that  he  ever  was,  or  could  be, 
any  thing  but  a  king ;  his  royalty  was,  in  his  eyes,  a  part 
of  his  nature,  one  of  the  constituent  elements  of  his  being, 
which  he  brought  into  the  world  with  him  at  his  birth, 
subject  to  no  conditions  but  his  life  ;  as  he  had  nothing  to 
do  to  retain  it,  it  was  no  more  in  his  power  to  cease  to  be 
worthy  of  it  than  to  cease  to  be  invested  with  it ;  and 
hence  arose  his  ignorance  of  his  duties  to  his  subjects  and 
to  his  own  safety,  and  his  indolent  confidence  in  the  midst 
of  danger.  Although  this  confidence  abandons  him  for  a 
moment  at  every  new  reverse,  it  returns  immediately, 
doubling  its  force  in  proportion  as  he  requires  more  of  it 
to  take  the  place  of  other  props,  which  successively  crum- 
ble away.  When  he  has  arrived  at  last  at  a  point  at 
which  it  is  no  longer  possible  for  him  to  hope,  the  king 
becomes  astonished,  looks  around,  and  inquires  if  he  is 
really  himself.  Another  kind  of  courage  then  springs  up 
within  him — the  courage  imparted  by  such  a  misfortune 
that  the  man  who  experiences  it  becomes  excited  by  the 
surprise  into  which  he  is  thrown  by  his  own  position  ;  it 
becomes  to  him  an  object  of  such  lively  attention,  that  he 
dares  to  contemplate  it  in  all  its  bearings,  were  it  only 
for  tbo  purpose  of  understanding  it ;  and  by  this  contain- 


310  SHAKSPEARE'S  HISTORICAL  DRAMAS. 

plation  he  escapes  from  despair,  and  sometimes  rises  to 
truth,  the  discovery  of  which  always  calms  a  man  to  a 
certain  degree.  But  this  calmness  is  barren,  and  this 
courage  inactive ;  it  sustains  the  mind,  but  it  is  fatal  to 
action ;  all  the  actions  of  Richard  are,  therefore,  deplorably 
feeble  :  even  his  reflections  upon  his  actual  condition  re- 
veal a  consciousness  of  his  own  nullity,  which  descends, 
at  certain  moments,  almost  to  baseness;  and  who  could 
raise  a  man  who,  on  ceasing  to  be  a  king,  has  lost,  in  his 
own  opinion,  the  distinctive  quality  of  his  being,  the  dig- 
nity of  his  nature  ?  He  believed  himself  precious  in  the 
sight  of  God,  sustained  by  His  arm,  and  armed  with  His 
power ;  when  fallen  from  the  mysterious  rank  which  he 
had  once  occupied,  he  knows  no  place  for  himself  upon 
earth  :  when  stripped  of  the  power  which  he  believed  his 
right,  he  does  not  suppose  that  any  strength  can  remain 
to  him :  he,  therefore,  makes  no  resistance  ;  to  do  so  would 
be  to  try  something  which  he  believes  impossible :  in  or- 
der to  arouse  his  energy,  some  sudden  and  pressing  danger 
must,  as  it  were,  provoke,  without  his  knowledge,  facul- 
ties which  he  disavows ;  when  his  life  is  attacked,  he  de- 
fends himself,  and  dies  with  courage  ;  but  in  order  always 
to  have  possessed  courage,  he  needed  to  know  what  a  man 
is  worth. 

We  must  not  expect  to  find  in  "Richard  II.,"  any 
more  than  in  the  majority  of  Shakspeare's  historical 
dramas,  a  particular  character  of  style.  Its  diction  is  not 
greatly  elaborated  ;  though  frequently  energetic,  it  is  fre- 
quently also  so  vague  as  to  leave  the  reason  to  decide  as 
it  pleases  upon  the  meaning  of  the  expressions,  which  can 
be  determined  by  no  rule  of  syntax. 

This  play  is  written  entirely  in  verse,  a  great  part  of 
which  is  in  rhyme.     The  author  appears  to  have  made 


KING  RICHARD  II.  611 

some  changes  in  it  after  the  first  edition,  which  was  pub- 
lished in  1597.  The  scene  of  Richard's  trial,  in  particu- 
lar, is  entirely  wanting  in  this  edition,  and  occurs  for  the 
first  time  in  that  published  in  1608 


FIRST  AND  SECOND  PARTS 

OF 

KING  HENRY  IV. 

(1597-1598.) 


The  commentators  have  given  to  these  two  plays  the 
title  of  comedies,  and,  in  fact,  although  their  subject  be- 
longs to  tragedy,  their  intention  is  comic.  In  Shakspeare's 
tragedies,  the  comic  sometimes  arises  spontaneously  from 
the  position  of  the  personages  introduced  to  assist  the  tragic 
action ;  here  not  only  does  a  part  of  the  action  absolutely 
turn  upon  the  comic  personages,  but  most  of  those  whose 
rank,  the  interest  in  which  they  are  concerned,  and  the 
dangers  to  which  they  expose  themselves,  might  raise  them 
to  the  dignity  of  tragic  personages,  are  presented  under 
the  aspect  which  belongs  to  comedy,  namely,  under  the 
weak  or  whimsical  features  of  their  nature.  The  almost 
puerile  impetuosity  of  the  fiery  Hotspur,  the  brutal  origin- 
ality of  his  good  sense,  and  his  soldier-like  ill  temper  with 
all  who  endeavor  to  detain  his  thoughts  for  a  moment  be- 
yond the  circle  of  the  interests  to  which  his  life  is  devoted, 
give  rise  to  some  extremely  piquant  scenes.  The  Welsh- 
man, Grlendower,  boastful  and  vainglorious,  as  loquacious 
as  he  is  brave,  who  makes  head  against  Hotspur  whenever 
he  threatens  or  contradicts  him,  but  who  yields  and  re- 
tires whenever  a  pleasantry  alarms  his  silf-love  with  the 
fear  of  ridicule,  is  a  truly  comic  conception.     Even  the 


KING  HENRY  IV.  313 

three  or  lour  words  which  Douglas  utters  are  also  charac- 
terized by  a  tinge  of  braggadocio.  Neither  of  these  three 
courages  is  expressed  in  the  same  way ;  but  all  yield  to 
that  of  Hotspur,  the  comic  hue  of  whose  character  does 
not  detract  in  the  slightest  degree  from  the  interest  which 
he  inspires.  "We  become  attached  to  him  as  to  Alceste  in 
the  "  Misanthrope" — to  a  great  character  who  is  the  vic- 
tim of  a  quality  which  the  impetuosity  of  his  temper  and 
the  preoccupation  of  his  own  ideas  have  turned  into  a  de- 
fect. "We  see  the  brave  Hotspur  accepting  the  enterprise 
proposed  to  him  before  he  knows  its  nature,  as  he  feels 
certain  of  success  as  soon  as  he  is  struck  with  the  idea  of 
action ;  we  see  him  successively  losing  all  the  supporters 
upon  whom  he  had  reckoned,  abandoned  or  betrayed  by 
those  who  have  involved  him  in  danger,  and  urged  onward, 
as  it  were,  by  a  sort  of  fatality  toward  the  abyss  which 
he  does  not  perceive  until  the  moment  when  he^finds  it 
impossible  to  draw  back  ;  and  he  falls  regretting  nothing 
but  his  glory.  This  is  doubtless  a  tragical  catastrophe,  and' 
the  substance  of  the  first  part  of  the  drama,  the  subject  of 
which  is  the  first  step  of  Henry  V.  toward  glory,  required 
one  of  this  kind ;  but  the  picture  of  the  vagaries  of  the 
prince's  youth,  nevertheless,  forms  the  most  important  part 
of  the  work,  the  principal  character  in  which  is  Falstaff. 
Falstaff  is  one  of  the  most  celebrated  personages  of  En- 
glish comedy,  and  perhaps  no  drama  can  present  a  gayer 
one.  The  description  of  the  follies  of  a  youth  so  disorder- 
ly as  that  of  Henry  V.,  at  a  time  when  manners  were  so 
coarse  and  rude,  would  be  a  very  melancholy  picture,  if, 
in  the  midst  of  its  uncouth  debauchery,  habits  and  pre- 
tensions of  a  higher  order  did  not  effect  a  contrast,  and 
perform  a  part  all  the  more  amusing  because  it  is  so  out 

of  place.     It  would  have  been  very  moral,  undoubtedly, 

O 


514  SHARSPEARES  HISTORICAL  DRAMAS. 

to  cast  the  ridicule  of  this  impropriety  upon  the  prince  who 
thus  degrades  himself;  but,  even  if  Shakspeare  had  not 
been  the  poet  of  the  court  of  England,  neither  probability 
nor  art  would  have  permitted  him  to  debase  such  a  per- 
sonage as  Henry  V.  He  is  careful,  on  the  contrary,  always 
to  preserve  to  him  the  dignity  of  his  character  and  the  su- 
periority of  his  position  ;  and  Falstaff,  who  is  destined  to 
amuse  us,  is  admitted  into  the  play  only  for  the  diversion 
of  the  prince. 

Born  to  move  in  good  society,  Falstaff  has  not  yet  re- 
nounced all  his  pretensions  of  this  kind  ;  he  has  not  adopt- 
ed the  coarseness  of  the  positions  to  which  he  is  degraded 
by  his  vices  ;  he  has  given  up  every  thing  except  his  self- 
love  ;  he  does  not  make  a  merit  of  his  intemperance,  nor 
does  he  base  his  vanity  upon  the  exploits  of  a  bandit.  If 
there  were  any  thing  to  which  he  would  cling,  it  would 
be  to  the  manners  and  qualities  of  a  gentleman ;  to  this 
character  he  would  pretend,  if  he  were  permitted  to  en- 
tertain, or  able  to  maintain,  a  pretension  of  any  kind.  At 
least,  he  is  determined  to  give  himself  the  pleasure  of  af- 
fecting these  qualities,  even  should  the  gratification  of  this 
pleasure  gain  him  an  affront ;  though  he  neither  believes 
in  it  himself,  nor  hopes  that  others  believe  in  it,  he  must 
at  any  cost  rejoice  his  ears  with  panegyrics  upon  his  brav- 
ery, and  almost  upon  his  virtues.  This  is  one  of  his  weak- 
nesses, just  as  the  taste  of  Canary  sack  is  a  temptation 
which  he  finds  it  impossible  to  resist ;  and  the  ingenuous- 
ness with  which  he  yields  to  it,  the  embarrassments  in 
which  it  involves  him,  and  the  sort  of  hypocritical  impu- 
dence which  assists  him  to  get  out  of  his  dilemmas,  make 
him  an  extraordinarily  amusing  personage.  The  play 
upon  words,  although  frequent  in  this  drama,  are  much 
\ess  numerous  than  in  several  other  dramas  of  a  more  se« 


\ 


KING  HENRY  IV.  315 

rious  character,  and  are  infinitely  better  placed.  The  mixt- 
ure of  subtlety,  for  which  Shakspeare  was  indebted  to 
the  spirit  of  his  time,  does  not  prevent  the  gayety  in  this 
piece,  as  well  as  in  those  in  which  Falstaff  reappears,  from 
being  perhaps  more  frank  and  natural  than  in  any  other 
work  of  the  English  drama. 

The  first  part  of  "  Henry  IV.*"  appeared,  it  is  believed, 
in  1597. 

Henry  V.  is  the  true  hero  of  the  second  part ;  his  acces-  \ 
sion  to  the  throne,  and  the  great  change  which  results  J 
from  it,  constitute  the  event  of  the  drama.     The  defeats  I 
of  the  Archbishop  of  York  and  of  Northumberland  are 
only  the  complement  of  the  facts  contained  in  the  first 
part.     Hotspur  is  no  longer  present  to  give  these  facts  a 
life  of  their  own,  and  the  horrible  treason  of  "Westmoreland  f 
is  not  of  a  nature  to  establish  a  dramatic  interest.     The  ' 
dying  Henry  IV.  appears  only  to  prepare  the  way  for  the 
reign  of  his  son,  and  all  our  attention  is  already  directed 
toward  the  successor,  who  possesses  equal  importance  from 
the  fears  and  hopes  which  he  occasions. 

Shakspeare  has  not  borrowed  the  picture  of  these  varied 
feelings  entirely  from  history.  The  accession  of  Henry  V. 
was  generally  a  subject  of  rejoicing.  Holinshed  relates 
that,  during  the  three  days  which  followed  the  decease  of 
his  father,  "  diverse  noblemen  and  honorable  personage* 
did  to  him  homage,  and  swore  to  him  due  obedience, 
which  had  not  been  seen  done  to  any  of  his  predecessors 
— such  good  hope  and  great  expectation  was  had  of  this 
i nan's  fortunate  success  to  follow."*  The  inconstant  ar- 
dor of  the  public  mind,  which  was  maintained  by  frequent 
overthrows,  necessarily  rendered  a  new  reign  a  subject  of 
hope ;  and  the  troubles  which  had  agitated  the  reign  of 

*  Holinshed's  Chronicles,  vol.  ii.,  p.  543. 


}16  SHAKSPEARE'S  HISTORICAL  DRAMAS. 

Henry  [V.,  the  cruelties  with  which  they  had  been  at- 
tended, and  the  continual  distrust  which  had  resulted  from 
them,  naturally  turned  the  eyes  and  the  affections  of  the 
nation  toward  a  young  prince  whose  irregularities,  at  such 
a  period  of  disorder,  gave  far  less  offense  than  his  gener 
ous  qualities  inspired  confidence.  A  portion  of  these  ir- 
regularities was,  moreover,  ascribed  to  the  jealous  distrust 
of  his  father,  who,  by  keeping  him  unconnected  with  pub 
lie  business,  for  which  he  had  manifested  great  aptitude 
and  even  denying  him  an  opportunity  to  display  his  mili- 
tary talents,  had  cast  his  impetuous  spirit  into  courses  of 
disorder,  in  which  the  manners  of  the  time  did  not  permit 
him  to  pause  until  he  had  been  guilty  of  its  extremest  ex- 
cesses. Holinshed  attributes  to  the  malevolence  of  those 
who  surrounded  the  king  not  only  the  suspicions  which 
he  was  disposed  to  entertain  regarding  his  son,  but  also  the 
odious  reports  which  were  spread  in  reference  to  the  con- 
duct of  the  prince.  He  relates  an  occasion  on  which  the 
prince,  having  to  defend  himself  against  certain  insinua- 
tions which  had  created  a  misunderstanding  between  his 
father  and  himself,  appeared  at  court  with  a  retinue,  the 
splendor  and  number  of  which  were  not  calculated  to  di- 
minish the  suspicions  of  the  king,  and  in  a  costume  so 
singular  that  the  chronicler  thinks  it  worthy  of  special 
mention.  It  was  "  a  gown  of  blue  satin,  full  of  small  eye- 
let holes,  at  every  hole  the  needle  hanging  by  a  silk  thread 
with  which  it  was  sewn."  "Whatever  may  be  thought 
would  be  the  constraint  of  the  movements  of  a  person 
clad  in  so  unprepossessing  a  manner,  the  prince  threw 
himself  at  his  father's  feet,  and,  after  having  protested  his 
fidelity,  presented  him  with  a  dagger,  that  he  might  rid 
himself  of  his  suspicions  by  putting  him  to  death,  and 
"  in  presence  of  these  lords,"  he  added,  "  and  before  God 


\ 


KING  HENRY  IV.  3\; 

at  the  general  judgment,  I  faithfully  protest  clearly  tc 
forgive  you."  The  king,  "  moved  herewith,  cast  from  him 
the  dagger,"  embraced  his  son  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  con- 
fessed his  suspicions,  and  declared,  at  the  same  time,  that 
they  were  effaced.  The  prince  demanded  the  punishment 
of  his  accusers,  but  the  king  replied  that  some  delay  was 
required  by  prudence,  and  did  not  punish  them  after  all. 
But  it  appears  that  the  general  opinion  sufficiently  avenged 
the  young  prince ;  and  without  precisely  believing  with 
Holinshed,  who  contradicts  himself  in  another  place  on 
this  point,  that  Henry  was  always  careful  "  to  tether  his 
affections  within  the  tract  of  virtue,"*  we  are  led  to  sup- 
pose that  there  may  be  some  exaggeration  in  the  account 
of  the  excesses  of  his  youth,  which  are  rendered  more  re 
markable  by  the  sudden  revolution  which  brought  them 
to  a  termination,  and  by  the  splendor  of  glory  which  fol- 
lowed them. 

Shakspeare  naturally  adopted  the  tradition  most  favor- 
able to  dramatic  effect ;  and  he  also  felt  how  admirably 
adapted  the  part  of  a  dying  king  and  father,  anxious  about 
the  fate  of  his  son  and  his  subjects,  was  to  produce  a 
touching  and  pathetic  picture  upon  the  stage  ;  and,  just  as 
he  has  invented  the  episode  of  Grascoigne  to  enhance  the 
beauty  of  his  denouement,  he  has  added  to  the  scene  of  the 
death  of  Henry  IV.  developments  which  render  it  infinitely 
more  interesting.  Holinshed  simply  relates  that  the  king, 
perceiving  that  the  crown  had  been  taken  from  his  pillow, 
and  learning  that  the  prince  had  carried  it  away,  sent  for 
him,  and  required  an  explanation  of  his  conduct,  "  Upon 
which  the  prince  with  a  good  audacity  answered,  '  Sir, 
to  mine  and  all  men's  judgments  you  seemed  dead  in  this 
world,  wherefore  I,  as  your  next  heir-apparent,  took  that 
*  Holinshcd's  Chronicles,  vol.  ii.,  p.  539. 


318  SHAKSPEARF/S  HISTORICAL  DRAMAS. 

as  mine  own,  and  not  as  yours.'  '  Well,  fair  son,'  said  the 
king,  with  a  great  sigh,  '  what  right  I  had  to  it,  God 
knoweth.'  '  Well,'  said  the  prince,  '  if  you  die  king,  I 
will  have  the  garland,  and  trust  to  keep  it  with  the  sword 
against  all  mine  enemies,  as  you  have  done.'  Then  said 
the  king,  '  I  commit  all  to  God,  and  remember  you  to  do 
well ;'  with  that  he  turned  himself  in  his  bed,  and  shortly 
after  departed  to  God."*  Perhaps  the  answer  of  the 
young  prince,  rendered  as  a  poet  might  have  rendered  it, 
would  have  been  preferable  to  the  studied  speech  which 
Shakspeare  has  put  into  his  mouth ;  he  has,  however,  re- 
tained a  part  of  it  in  the  last  reply  of  the  Prince  of  Wales, 
and  the  rest  of  the  scene  is  full  of  great  beauties,  as  are 
also  those  which  follow  between  Gascoigne  and  the  prince. 
In  the  whole,  Shakspeare  seems  to  have  desired  to  redeem, 
by  beauties  of  detail,  the  necessary  coldness  of  the  tragic 
part ;  it  contains  many  excellences,  and  its  style  is  gener- 
ally more  careful  and  more  free  from  whimsicality  than 
that  of  most  of  his  other  historical  dramas. 

The  comic  part,  which  is  very  important  and  very  con- 
siderable in  the  second  part  of  "Henry  IV.,"  is  not,  how- 
ever, equal  in  merit  to  the  corresponding  portion  of  the 
first  part  of  the  same  play.  Falstaff  has  got  on  in  the  in- 
terval ;  he  has  a  pension  and  a  rank ;  his  relations  with 
the  prince  are  less  frequent ;  his  wit  does  not,  therefore, 
so  frequently  serve  to  deliver  him  from  those  embarrass- 
ments which  rendered  him  so  comic ;  and  comedy  is 
obliged  to  descend  a  stage  to  represent  him  in  his  true  na- 
ture, under  the  influence  of  his  real  tastes,  and  in  the 
midst  of  the  rascals  with  whom  he  associates  or  the  fools 
whom  he  makes  his  dupes.  These  pictures  are  undoubt- 
edly painted  with  striking  truth,  and  abound  in  comic 
*  Holinshed's  Chronicles,  vol.  ii.,  p.  541. 


KING  HENRY  IV.  319 

features,  "but  the  truth  is  not  always  sufficiently  removed 
from  disgust  for  its  comicality  to  find  us  disposed  to  enter 
into  all  the  mirth  which  it  inspires  ;  and  the  personages 
upon  whom  the  ridicule  falls  do  not  always  appear  to  us 
to  be  worth  the  trouble  of  laughing  at  them.  The  char- 
acter of  Falstaff  is,  however,  perfectly  sustained,  and  will 
appear  in  all  its  completeness  when  we  next  meet  with  it 
in  another  play. 

The  second  part  of  "  Henry  IV."  appeared,  it  is  be- 
lieved, in  1598. 


KING  HENRY  V. 

(1599.) 


It  is  erroneously  that  most  critics  have  regarded  "  Hen- 
ry V."  as  one  of  the  weakest  of  Shakspeare's  works.  The 
fifth  act,  it  is  true,  is  empty  and  cold,  and  the  conversa- 
tions which  compose  it  possess  as  little  poetic  merit  as 
dramatic  interest.  But  the  progress  of  the  first  four  acts 
is  simple,  rapid,  and  animated  ;  the  events  of  the  history, 
plans  of  government  or  of  conquest,  plots,  negotiations,  and 
wars,  are  transformed  in  them  without  effort  into  dramatic 
scenes  full  of  life  and  effect.  If  the  characters  are  not 
completely  developed,  they  are  at  least  well  drawn  and 
well  sustained  ;  and  the  double  genius  of  Shakspeare,  as 
a  profound  moralist  and  a  brilliant  poet,  even  in  the  pain- 
ful and  fantastic  forms  in  which  he  sometimes  clothes  his 
thought  and  imagination,  retains,  in  these  four  acts,  all 
its  abundance  and  its  splendor. 

We  also  meet,  in  the  words  of  the  chorus  which  fills  up 
the  intervals  between  the  acts,  with  remarkable  proofs  of 
Shakspeare's  good  sense,  and  of  the  instinct  which  led  him 
to  feel  the  inconveniences  of  his  dramatic  system.  At  the 
very  opening  of  the  play,  he  thus  addresses  his  audience. 
"  Let  us,"  he  says, 

M  On  your  imaginary  forces  work ; 
For  'tis  your  thoughts  lhat  now  must  deck  our  kings, 


KING  HENRY  V.  32J 

Carry  them  here  and  there  ;  jumping  o'er  times  ; 
Turning  the  accomplishment  of  many  years 
Into  an  hour-glass." 

And  in  another  place  he  says, 

"  Linger  your  patience  on  ;  and  well  digest 
The  abuse  of  distance,  while  we  force  a  play." 

The  popular  and  comic  part  of  the  drama,  although  the 
originality  of  Falstaff's  wit  is  ahsent,  contains  scenes  of 
perfect  natural  gayety ;  and  the  Welshman  Fluellen  is  a 
model  of  that  serious,  ingenious,  inexhaustible,  unexpect- 
ed, and  jocose  military  talkativeness,  which  excites  at  once 
our  laughter  and  our  sympathy. 


KING  HENRY  VI. 

(1589-1591.) 


Among  the  editors  and  commentators  of  Shakspeare,  the 
three  parts  of  "  Henry  VI."  have  formed  a  subject  of  con- 
troversy which  is  not  yet  decided,  nor,  perhaps,  even  ex- 
hausted. Several  of  them  have  thought  that  the  first  of 
these  pieces  belonged  to  him  in  no  respect ;  others,  fewer 
in  number,  have  also  denied  him  the  original  invention  of 
the  last  two  parts,  which,  in  their  opinion,  he  had  merely 
retouched,  and  the  primitive  conception  of  which  belonged 
to  one  or  two  other  authors.  Neither  of  these  three  pieces 
was  printed  during  Shakspeare's  lifetime  ;  but  this  proves 
nothing,  for  the  same  may  be  said  of  several  other  works, 
the  authenticity  of  which  is  contested  by  no  one,  although 
it  certainly  leaves  every  latitude  to  doubt  and  discussion. 

The  general  weakness  of  these  three  compositions,  in 
which  we  can  find  only  a  small  number  of  scenes  which 
reveal  the  touch  of  a  master's  hand,  would  nevertheless 
not  be  a  sufficient  reason  for  ascribing  them  to  another  pen 
than  his  ;  for,  if  they  belonged  to  him,  they  would  be  his 
first  works,  a  circumstance  that  would  sufficiently  explain 
their  inferiority,  at  least  so  far  as  regards  the  conduct  of 
the  drama,  the  connection  of  the  scenes,  and  the  art  of 
sustaining  and  augmenting  the  interest  progressively,  by 
bringing  all  the  various  parts  of  the  composition  to  one 


KING  HENRY  VI.  323 

single  impression  which  increases  as  it  advances,  just  as 
a  river  becomes  larger  at  every  step  from  the  influx  of 
waters  from  every  side.  Such  is,  in  fact,  Shakspeare's 
character  in  his  great  compositions,  hut  it  is  essentially 
wanting  to  the  three  parts  of  "  Henry  VI.,"  and  especially 
to  the  first  part.  But  Shakspeare's  defects  are  equally  ab- 
sent— that  refinement  and  emphasis  from  which  he  has 
not  always  escaped  even  in  his  finest  works,  and  which 
are  the  almost  necessary  result  of  the  juvenility  of  ideas 
which,  being  astonished,  as  it  were,  at  themselves,  are  un- 
able to  exhaust  the  pleasure  which  they  feel  in  their  own 
production.  It  would,  indeed,  be  strange  if  Shakspeare's 
first  essays  were  exempt  from  these  defects. 

We  must,  however,  distinguish  here  between  the  three 
parts  of  "  Henry  VI.,"  those  circumstances  which  concern 
the  first  part,  to  which  it  is  believed  that  Shakspeare  was 
almost  entirely  a  stranger,  and  those  which  have  refer- 
ence to  the  other  two  parts,  the  invention  and  original 
composition  of  which  are  alone  denied  to  him,  although  it 
is  admitted  that  he  retouched  them  to  a  considerable  ex- 
tent.    These  are  the  facts. 

In  1623,  that  is,  seven  years  after  the  death  of  Shaks- 
peare, appeared  the  first  complete  edition  of  his  works. 
Fourteen  only  of  his  dramas  had  been  printed  during  his 
lifetime,  and  the  three  parts  of  "  Henry  VI."  were  not 
among  the  number ;  they  appeared  in  1623,  in  the  state 
in  which  they  are  given  at  the  present  day,  and  were  all 
three  ascribed  to  Shakspeare,  although  a  sort  of  tradition, 
as  it  would  appear,  already  disputed  his  title  to  the  au- 
thorship of  the  first  part.  On  the  other  hand,  as  early  as 
the  year  1600,  had  been  published,  without  the  author's 
name,  by  Thomas  Millington,  bookseller,  two  plays,  en- 
titled— one,  "  The  first  part  of  the  Contention  between  the 


324  SHAKSPEARE'S  HISTORICAL  DRAMAS. 

two  famous  Houses  of  York  and  Lancaster ;"  and  the 
other,  "  The  true  Tragedy  of  Richard,  Duke  of  York,  and 
Death  of  Grood  King  Henry  VI,  Of  these  two  plays,  one 
served  as  a  matrix,  if  I  may  be  allowed  the  expression, 
for  the  second  part  of  "  Henry  VI.,"  and  the  other  for  the 
third.  The  progress  and  conformation  of  the  scenes  and 
dialogue  are  the  same  in  both,  with  the  exception  of  a  few 
slight  differences ;  entire  passages  have  been  transferred 
verbatim  from  the  original  plays  into  those  which  Shaks- 
peare  has  given  us  under  the  name  of  the  "  Second  and 
Third  Parts  of  Henry  VI."  Most  of  the  lines  have  been 
merely  embellished,  and  a  very  small  number  only  are 
entirely  new. 

In  1619,  that  is,  three  years  after  the  death  of  Shaks- 
peare,  these  two  original  dramas  were  reprinted  by  a  book- 
seller named  Pavier,  and  this  time  with  the  name  of  our 
poet.  Hence  arose  among  the  critics  the  opinion  that  they 
belonged  to  Shakspeare,  and  ought  to  be  regarded  either 
as  a  first  composition,  which  he  had  himself  revised  and 
corrected,  or  as  an  imperfect  copy,  prepared  for  the  actors, 
and  printed  in  this  state — which  often  happened  at  this 
period,  as  authors  were  not  generally  in  the  habit  of  hav- 
ing their  plays  printed.  This  last  opinion  was  for  a  long 
while  the  most  general ;  but  it  can  not  bear  investigation, 
for,  as  it  is  observed  by  Mr.  Malone,  who  of  all  the  com- 
mentators has  thrown  most  light  upon  this  question,  an 
awkward  copyist  omits  and  maims,  but  does  not  add  to 
his  original ;  and  the  two  original  plays  contain  several 
passages,  and  also  some  short  scenes,  which  do  not  occur 
in  the  others.  Besides,  nothing  about  them  bears  the  im- 
press of  an  ill-made  copy  ;  the  versification  is  regular,  and 
the  style  is  only  much  more  prosaic  than  that  of  the  pas- 
sages which   undubitably   belong    to    Rhnkspoare :    frorr 


KING  HENRY  VI.  325 

whence  it  would  result  that  the  copyist  had  omitted  pre- 
cisely those  features  which  were  most  striking,  and  best 
calculated  to  impress  themselves  upon  the  imagination 
and  the  memory. 

There  only  remains,  therefore,  the  supposition  of  a  first 
sketch,  afterward  perfected  hy  its  author.  Among  the 
proofs  of  detail  which  Mr.  Malone  accumulates  in  opposi- 
tion to  this  opinion,  and  which  are  not  all  equally  conclu- 
sive, there  is,  however,  one  which  deserves  to  be  taken 
into  consideration,  and  that  is,  that  the  original  plays  are 
evidently  based  upon  Hall's  chronicle,  whereas  Shakspeare 
always  followed  Holinshed,  never  borrowing  from  Hall 
except  when  Holinshed  has  copied  him.  It  is  not  at  all 
probable  that,  if  he  had  used  Hall  for  his  first  works,  he 
would  afterward  have  left  the  original  for  the  copyist. 

If  these  two  opinions  be  rejected,  we  must  suppose  that 
Shakspeare  borrowed  without  scruple,  from  the  work  of 
another,  the  substance  and  stuff  which  he  afterward  en- 
riched with  his  own  embroidery.  His  numerous  borrow- 
ings from  the  dramatic  authors  of  this  time  render  this 
supposition  very  easy  of  credence,  and  the  following  fact, 
in  this  special  instance,  is  almost  equivalent  to  a  proof  of 
its  legitimacy.  In  the  first  place,  it  must  be  observed 
that  the  two  original  pieces  which  were  printed  in  1600 
existed  as  early  as  1593  ;  for  we  find  them,  at  that  period, 
registered  under  the  same  title,  and  with  the  name  of  the 
same  bookseller,  in  the  registers  of  the  Stationers'  Com- 
pany. What  cause  delayed  the  publication  of  these  two 
plays  until  1600,  it  is  useless  just  now  to  discuss ;  but  the 
proof  of  the  antiquity  of  their  existence  acquires,  in  the 
discussion  which  now  occupies  our  attention,  considerable 
importance  from  the  following  passage  in  a  pamphlet  by 
Greene,  a  verv  prolific  author,  who  died  in  the  month  ol 


326  SHAKSPEARE'S  HISTORICAL  DRAMAS. 

September,  1592.  In  this  pamphlet,  which  was  written 
a  short  time  before  his  death,  and  printed  immediately 
after,  as  he  had  ordered  in  his  will,  Grreen  addresses  his 
farewell  advice  to  several  of  his  friends,  literary  men  like 
himself;  and  the  object  of  this  advice  is  to  dissuade  them 
from  working  for  the  theatre,  if  they  desire  to  escape  the 
griefs  of  which  he  complains.  One  of  the  motives  which 
he  gives  for  so  doing  is  the  imprudence  of  trusting  to  the 
actors  ;  for,  he  says,  "  there  is  an  upstart  crow,  beautified 
with  our  feathers,  that  with  his  Tiger's  heart  wrapped 
in  a  player's  hide,*  supposes  he  is  as  well  able  to  bom- 
bast out  a  blank  verse  as  the  best  of  you ;  and,  being  an 
absolute  Johannes  Factotum,  is,  in  his  own  conceit,  the 
only  Shake-scene  in  the  country."!  These  passages  leave 
no  doubt  as  to  Shakspeare's  having  borrowed  from  Greene 
as  early  as  in  1592  ;  and  as  the  three  parts  of  "Henry 
VI."  are  the  only  dramas  of  our  poet  which  it  is  believed 
can  be  placed  before  that  period,  the  question  would  seem 
to  be  almost  settled ;  while,  at  the  same  time,  the  quota- 
tion by  Greene,  on  this  occasion,  of  a  line  from  the  orig- 
inal play,  would  prove  that  it  was  this  borrowing  which 
went  to  his  heart.  It  is,  therefore,  very  probable  thai 
Shakspeare,  who  was  then  an  actor,  and  exercised  the 
activity  of  his  genius  as  yet  only  for  the  advantage  of  his 
troop,  may  have  tried  to  bring  upon  the  stage,  with  greater 
success,  dramas  already  known,  and  the  substance  of 
which  furnished  him  with  a  few  beauties  which  he  could 
turn  to  account.  As  plays  then  belonged,  according  to  all 
appearances,  to  the  actors  who  had  bought  them,  the  un- 

*  In  allusion  to  a  line  in  the  old  play — "The  First  Tart  of  the  Con- 
tention :" 

"  0,  tyger's  heart,  wrapt  in  a  woman's  hide." 
t  Greene's  "Groatsworth  of  Wit,"  159^. 


KING  HENRY  VT.  327 

dertaking  was  a  natural  one,  and  the  success  of  "  Henry 
VI."  may  probably  have  been  the  first  indication,  in  re- 
liance upon  which  a  genius  as  yet  ignorant  of  its  owr 
strength  ventured  to  dart  forward  on  its  career. 

In  order  to  explain  why  Shakspeare,  after  thus  remod- 
eling the  two  plays  from  which  he  constructed  the  second 
and  third  parts  of  "  Henry  VI.,"  did  not  do  the  same  work 
for  the  first  part,  it  will  be  sufficient  to  suppose  that  the 
first  part  already  enjoyed  enough  success  upon  the  stage 
to  prevent  the  interest  of  the  actors  from  requiring  any 
change  in  it.  This  supposition  is,  moreover,  supported  by 
a  passage  in  a  pamphlet  by  Thomas  Nashe,  in  which  he 
says,  "  How  would  it  have  joyed  brave  Talbot,  the  terror 
of  the  French,  to  think  that  after  he  had  lain  two  hundred 
years  in  his  tomb,  he  should  triumph  again  on  the  stage, 
and  have  his  bones  new  embalmed  with  the  tears  of  ten 
thousand  spectators  at  least  (at  several  times),  who,  in  the 
tragedian  that  represents  his  person,  behold  him  fresh  bleed- 
ing."* Nashe,  the  intimate  friend  of  Grreene,  would  prob- 
ably not  have  spoken  in  such  terms  of  one  of  Shakspeare's 
plays,  and  perhaps  the  success  achieved  by  this  drama  may 
have  induced  Shakspeare  to  render  the  other  two  parts 
worthy  to  share  in  its  triumph ;  but  even  with  this  sup- 
position, it  would  be  difficult  not  to  believe  that,  either 
before  or  afterward,  Shakspeare  had  enhanced,  by  a  few 
touches,  the  coloring  of  a  work  which  had  only  succeeded 
in  pleasing  his  contemporaries  because  Shakspeare  had  not 
yet  made  his  appearance.  The  scenes,  therefore,  between 
Talbot  and  his  son  must  be  by  him,  or  else  we  must  be- 
lieve that  before  his  time  there  existed  in  England  a  dra- 
matic author  capable  of  attaining  that  touching  and  no- 

*  Nashe's  "Pierce  Penniless  ;  his  Supplication  to  ihe  Devil." 


328  SHAKSPEARE'S  HISTORICAL  DRAMAS. 

ble  truthfulness  of  which  very  few,  even  of  his  successors, 
have  divined  the  secret.  Nothing  can  be  finer  than  this 
description  of  the  two  heroes — one  dying,  and  the  other 
scarcely  initiated  into  a  warrior's  life ;  the  first,  satiated 
with  glory,  and,  in  his  paternal  anxiety,  desirous  rather 
to  save  the  life  than  the  honor  of  his  son  ;  the  other,  stern 
and  inflexible,  determined  to  prove  his  filial  affection  by 
seeking  death  at  his  father's  side,  and  by  his  carefulness 
thus  to  maintain  the  honor  of  his  race.  This  position,  va- 
ried by  all  the  alternations  of  fear  and  hope  which  can  be 
occasioned  by  the  chances  of  a  battle,  in  which  the  father 
saves  his  son,  and  the  son  is  eventually  slain  at  a  distance 
from  his  father,  contains  in  itself  almost  the  interest  of  a 
drama ;  and  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  Shaks- 
peare  added  this  ornament  to  a  play  which  his  close  con- 
nection with  those  parts  of  it  which  he  had  remodeled  had, 
as  it  were,  incorporated  into  his  works.  It  must  also  be 
observed,  that  the  scenes  between  Talbot  and  his  son  are 
almost  entirely  in  rhyme,  as  is  the  case  in  many  of  Shaks- 
peare's  works,  whereas,  in  the  rest  of  the  play,  as  well  as 
in  the  two  plays  which  appear  to  be  intended  as  a  contin- 
uation of  it,  there  is  scarcely  a  rhyme  to  be  found.  The 
scene  which,  in  the  first  part  of  "  Henry  VI.,"  contains 
most  rhyme,  is  that  in  which  we  behold  Mortimer  dying 
in  prison,  and  we  might  therefore  suppose  that  it  had  re- 
ceived at  least  some  additions  from  the  hand  of  Shakspeare. 
These  additions,  and  a  few  others  perhaps,  in  all  not  very 
numerous,  may  have  furnished  the  editors  of  1623  with 
what  appeared  to  them  a  sufficient  reason  for  including, 
among  the  works  of  a  poet  who  had  excelled  all  competi- 
tors, a  play  which  owed  entire  its  merit  to  what  he  had 
added  to  it,  and  which  was  also  necessarily  connected 
with  two  other  works  which  contained  too  much  of  his 


KING  HENR'f   VI.  329 

composition  to  be  omitted  from  the  number  of  his  produc- 
tions. 

As  to  the  insertion  of  Shakspeare's  name  in  Pavier's 
edition  of  the  two  original  plays,  it  is  easy  to  explain  it 
as  a  bookseller's  trick — a  kind  of  fraud  extremely  common 
at  that  time,  and  which  has  been  practised  in  reference 
to  several  dramatic  works  composed  upon  subjects  which 
Shakspeare  had  treated,  and  which  the  publishers  hoped 
to  sell  by  favor  of  his  name.  This  conjecture  is  rendered 
all  the  more  probable  by  the  fact  that  this  edition  is  un- 
dated, although  we  know  that  it  appeared  in  1619,  which 
might  be  a  petty  bookselling  scheme  to  make  purchasers 
believe  that  it  had  appeared  during  the  lifetime  of  the  au- 
thor whose  name  it  had  borrowed. 

"We  are  ignorant  of  the  precise  period  of  the  performance 
of  the  first  part  of  "  Henry  VI.,"  which,  according  to  Ma- 
lone,  originally  bore  the  name  of  "  The  Historical  Play  of 
King  Henry  the  Sixth."  The  style  of  this  play,  except  so 
much  of  it  as  we  may  attribute  to  Shakspeare,  bears  the 
same  character  as  that  of  all  the  dramatic  works  of  the 
period  which  preceded  the  compositions  of  our  poet :  the 
grammatical  construction  is  very  irregular,  the  tone  is 
simple  but  undignified,  and  the  versification  sufficiently 
prosaic.  The  interest,  which  is  somewhat  mediocre — al- 
though the  play  is  full  of  movement — is  furthermore  great- 
ly diminished,  in  our  view,  by  the  ridiculous  and  uncouth 
absurdity  of  the  part  of  Joan  of  Arc,  which  may,  however, 
give  us  a  most  exact  idea  of  the  spirit  in  which  the  En- 
glish chroniclers  have  written  the  history  of  this  heroic 
maiden,  and  of  the  aspect  under  which  they  have  de- 
scribed her.     In  this  sense  the  play  is  historical. 

The  second  part  of  "  Henry  VI.,"  though  much  more 
interesting  than  the  first,  is  not  conducted  with  much 


330  SHAKSPEARE'S  HISTORICAL   DRAMAS. 

greater  art :  monologues  are  continually  employed  to  ex- 
plain the  facts,  and  feelings  are  expressed  in  asides.  The 
scenes,  separated  by  considerable  intervals  (for  the  whole 
play  comprehends  the  space  of  ten  years),  are  connected 
with  each  other  by  no  link  ;  we  can  perceive  none  of  those 
efforts  which  Shakspeare  made,  in  most  of  his  other  works, 
to  unite  them  together,  sometimes  even  at  the  expense  of 
probability;  and  as,  at  the  same  time,  we  are  never  in- 
formed of  the  interval  which  separates  them,  we  are  fre- 
quently astonished  at  finding  ourselves  transferred,  with- 
out having  remarked  it,  to  a  distance  of  several  years  from 
the  event  which  we  have  just  seen  accomplished.  The 
different  parts  of  the  play,  moreover,  do  not  depend  essen- 
tially upon  each  other,  which  is  a  fault  very  rare  in  the 
works  that  are  indisputably  acknowledged  to  be  produc- 
tions of  Shakspeare's  pen.  Thus,  for  example,  the  adven- 
ture of  Simpcox  is  absolutely  superfluous  ;  that  of  the  ar- 
morer and  his  apprentice  is  but  feebly  connected  with  the 
subject ;  and  the  pirates  who  put  Suffolk  to  death  have 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  rest  of  the  plot.  As  to 
the  general  cast  of  the  characters,  it  is  far  from  correspond- 
ing to  Shakspeare's  ordinary  talent.  It  can  not,  however, 
be  denied,  that  there  is  some  merit  in  the  portraiture  of 
Henry,  a  prince  whose  pious  sentiments  and  constant  good- 
ness almost  always  succeed  in  interesting  us,  notwithstand- 
ing the  ridiculousness  of  his  weakness  and  poverty  of  mind, 
which  border  closely  upon  imbecility.  The  part  of  Mar- 
garet, also,  is  tolerably  well  sustained  ;  but  her  excess  of 
falsity  to  her  husband  exceeds  the  limits  of  probability ; 
and  Shakspeare  would  not,  in  his  good  time  at  least,  have 
ascribed  to  two  such  criminals  as  Margaret  and  Suffolk 
such  tender  feelings  as  those  which  mark  their  last  inter- 
view     A<;  for  Warwick  and  Salisbury,  they  arc  two  char- 


KING  HENRY  VI.  331 

acters  without  any  kind  of  connection,  and  which  it  is 
utterly  impossible  to  explain. 

Whether  Shakspeare  is  or  is  not  the  author  of  the  play 
entitled  "  The  First  Part  of  the  Contention  betwixt  the 
two  famous  Houses  of  York  and  Lancaster,'"  the  Second 
Part  of  "  Henry  VI."  is  entirely  based  upon  that  work. 
Shakspeare  has,  however,  quoted  from  it  verbatim  only  to 
a  small  extent,  and  particularly  in  the  scenes  of  rapid  dia- 
logue, like  that  of  the  adventure  of  Simpcox,  the  fight  be- 
tween the  two  artisans,  and  the  dispute  between  Orloster 
and  the  Cardinal  at  the  hunt ;  he  has  made  but  few  alter- 
ations in  these  pieces,  as  well  as  in  a  part  of  Cade's  rebel- 
lion. That  horribly  effective  scene,  however,  in  which 
Lord  Say  falls  into  the  hands  of  the  populace,  is  almost 
entirely  by  Shakspeare.  As  for  the  rather  long  speeches, 
he  has  embellished  them  all,  more  or  less,  and  most  of 
them  even  belong  entirely  to  him,  as,  for  instance,  those 
of  Henry  on  behalf  of  Gloster,  those  of  Margaret  to  her 
husband,  a  great  part  of  Gr loster's  defense,  some  of  York's 
monologues,  and  nearly  the  whole  of  the  part  of  young 
Clifford.  It  is  not  difficult  to  discern  Shakspeare's  hand 
in  these,  as  the  poetry  is  bolder,  more  brilliant  with  im- 
agery, and  less  free,  perhaps,  from  that  abuse  of  wit  which 
Shakspeare  does  not  appear  to  have  borrowed  from  the 
dramatic  poets  of  the  period.  Moreover,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  a  certain  number  of  anachronisms  common  to  all 
Shakspeare's  works,  this  play  is  tolerably  faithful  to  his- 
tory ;  and  the  perusal  of  chronicles  imparted  to  the  authors 
of  historical  dramas,  at  this  period,  a  character  of  truthful- 
ness, and  means  of  interest,  which  superior  men  alone  can 
derive  from  subjects  of  their  own  invention. 

The  third  part  of  "  Henry  VI."  comprises  the  interval 
from  the  spring  of  the  year  1455  until  the  end  of  1471, 


332  SHAKSPEARES  HISTORICAL  DRAMAS. 

that  is,  a  space  of  nearly  sixteen  years,  during  which 
fourteen  battles  were  fought,  which,  according  to  a  proba- 
bly much  exaggerated  calculation,  cost  more  than  eighty 
thousand  combatants  their  lives.  Blood  and  deaths  are, 
therefore,  not  spared  in  this  drama,  although,  of  these 
fourteen  battles,  only  four  are  represented,  with  which 
the  author  has  been  careful  to  connect  the  principal  facts 
of  all  the  fourteen  ;  these  facts  are,  for  the  most  part,  as- 
sassinations in  cold  blood,  accompanied  by  the  most  atro- 
cious circumstances,  sometimes  borrowed  from  history,  and 
sometimes  added  by  the  author  or  authors.  Thus,  the 
circumstance  of  the  handkerchief  steeped  in  the  blood  of 
Rutland,  and  given  to  his  father,  York,  to  dry  his  tears,  is 
a  pure  invention  ;  and  the  character  of  Richard,  both  in 
this  piece  and  the  preceding  one,  is  equally  fictitious 
Richard  was  much  younger  than  his  brother  Rutland, 
who  is  here  represented  as  his  junior,  and  he  could  not 
possibly  have  taken  any  part  in  the  events  upon  which  the 
two  dramas  are  founded  ;  but  his  character  is,  in  other  re- 
spects, well  announced  and  well  sustained.  That  of  Mar- 
garet does  not  belie  itself ;  and  that  of  Henry,  through  the 
progress  of  his  weakness  and  imbecility,  still  affords  us 
casual  glimpses  of  those  gentle  and  pious  feelings  which 
made  him  so  interesting  in  the  first  part.  These  portions 
of  his  part  belong  entirely  to  Shakspeare,  as  well  as  most 
of  Henry's  meditations  during  the  battle  of  Towton,  his 
speech  to  the  lieutenant  of  the  Tower,  his  scene  with  the 
keepers,  and  so  forth ;  and  these  pieces  are  either  entirely 
wanting,  or  merely  outlined,  in  the  original  play.  It  is 
easy  to  distinguish  the  passages  which  wore  added,  for 
they  are  characterized  by  a  charm  and  simplicity  of  im- 
agery which  the  style  of  the  original  work  nowhere  pre- 
sents.    Sometimes,  also,  the  passages  retouched  by  Shaks- 


KING  HENRY  VI.  333 

oeare,  whether  of  his  own  work  or  that  of  another,  are 
remarkable  for  that  refinement  of  wit  which  is  familiar  to 
him,  and  which  is  not  compensated,  in  this  case,  by  that 
consistency  and  coherence  of  imagery  which,  in  his  best 
works,  almost  always  accompany  his  subtleties.  This 
may  be  remarked,  for  example,  in  Richard's  lamentations 
over  the  death  of  his  father  ;  it  would  be  difficult  to  at- 
tribute them  to  any  other  than  Shakspeare,  so  clearly  dr. 
they  bear  his  impress  ;  but  it  would  be  equally  difficult  to 
ascribe  them  to  his  better  time,  and  their  imperfection 
might  serve  as  an  additional  proof  that  the  three  parts  of 
u  Henry  VI.,"  as  we  possess  them  at  the  present  day,  pre- 
sent us,  not  with  Shakspeare  corrected  by  himself,  but 
with  Shakspeare  employing  the  first  efforts  of  his  genius 
to  correct  the  works  of  others.  He  has,  besides,  embel- 
lished this  part  much  less  than  the  preceding  one,  which 
probably  appeared  to  him  more  worthy  of  his  attention ; 
with  the  exception  of  Margaret's  speech  before  the  battle 
of  Tewkesbury,  a  part  of  the  scene  between  Edward  and 
Lady  Grey,  and  a  few  other  unimportant  passages,  we  can 
add  no  more  to  those  which  have  been  quoted  already  as 
belonging  entirely  to  the  corrected  work.  The  greater 
part  of  the  original  play  is  reproduced  word  for  word  ;  and 
we  also  meet  with  the  same  want  of  connection  which  is 
noticeable  in  the  first  and  second  parts.  The  horrors  which 
are  accumulated  in  this  part  are  painted  with  a  certain 
amount  of  energy,  but  it  is  far  removed  from  that  profound 
truthfulness  which,  in  his  finest  works,  Shakspeare  has 
extracted,  as  it  were,  from  the  very  bowels  of  nature. 


KING    RICHARD    III. 

(1597.) 


Richard  III.  is  one  of  those  men  wha  have  produced 
upon  the  time  in  which  they  lived  an  impression  of  horror 
and  dread  which  is  always  based  upon  some  real  cause, 
although  it  may  afterward  lead  to  an  exaggeration  of  the 
realities  of  the  case.  Holinshed  calls  him  "  one  of  those 
bad  persons  who  will  not  live  an  hour  without  doing  and 
exercising  cruelty,  mischief,  and  an  outrageous  manner 
of  living."  Undoubtedly — and  historical  criticism  has 
supplied  the  proof  of  this — the  life  of  Richard  has  been 
charged  with  several  crimes  which  do  not  properly  belong 
to  him ;  but  these  errors  and  exaggerations,  the  natural 
result  of  the  popular  feeling,  explain,  though  they  do  not 
justify,  the  whimsical  attempt  of  Horace  Walpole  to  re- 
habilitate the  memory  of  Richard,  by  purging  him  of  most 
of  the  crimes  of  which  he  is  accused.  This  is  one  of  those 
paradoxical  questions  upon  which  the  mind  of  the  critic 
who  allows  himself  to  engage  in  it  becomes  excited,  and 
in  which  the  most  ingenious  discussion  serves  only  to 
prove  to  what  extent  the  mind  may  be  employed  to  em- 
barrass the  simple  and  steady  progress  of  truth.  Doubt- 
less we  must  not  judge  a  person  who  lived  in  tho.->e  times 
of  disorder  by  the  gentle  and  regular  habits  of  our  mod* 
em  ideas,  and  many  things  must  be  laid  to  the  charge  <>l 


KING  RICHARD  III.  335 

the  men  and  facts  in  the  midst  of  which  historical  char- 
acters appear.  But  when,  at  the  epoch  at  which  Richard 
III.  lived,  after  the  horrors  of  the  Red  and  White  Roses, 
the  puhlic  hatred  chose  out  one  man  from  among  all  to 
present  him  as  a  model  of  cruelty  and  perfidy,  there  must 
assuredly  have  been  something  extraordinary  in  his  crimes, 
were  it  only  the  distinction  which  is  added  to  them  by  su- 
periority of  talents  and  character,  which,  when  it  is  em- 
ployed in  the  service  of  crime,  renders  it  at  once  more  dan- 
gerous and  more  insulting. 

The  generally  received  opinion  regarding  Richard  may 
have  contributed  to  the  success  oi  the  play  which  bears 
his  name ;  and,  perhaps,  not  one  of  Shakspeare's  works 
has  attained  more  abiding  popularity  in  England.  The 
critics  have  not  usually  treated  it  so  favorably  as  the  pub- 
lic ;  some  of  them,  and  Johnson  among  the  number,  have 
expressed  their  astonishment  at  its  prodigious  success. 
"We  might,  on  the  other  hand,  feel  astonished  at  their  sur- 
prise, if  we  did  not  know,  by  experience,  that  the  critic, 
whose  duty  it  is  to  introduce  order  into  riches  which  the 
public  has  enjoyed  at  first  confusedly,  sometimes  becomes 
so  attached  to  this  order,  and  particularly  to  the  mannei 
in  which  he  has  conceived  it,  that  he  allows  himself  easi 
ly  to  be  induced  to  condemn  those  beauties  for  which  he 
can  not  find  a  convenient  place  within  the  limits  of  his 
system. 

"  Richard  III.,"  more  than  any  other  of  Shakspeare's 
great  works,  presents  the  defects  common  to  the  historical 
dramas  which,  before  his  time,  held  possession  of  the 
stage ;  we  find  in  it  that  accumulation  of  facts,  that  ag- 
gregation of  catastrophes,  that  improbability  of  dramatic 
progress  and  theatrical  execution,  which  are  the  necessary 
results  of  all  that  material  movement  which  Shakspearo 


336  SHAKSPEARE'S  HISTORICAL  DRAMAS. 

has  reduced,  as  much  as  possible,  in  those  objects  which 
he  had  more  freely  at  his  disposal,  but  which  could  not  be 
avoided  in  national  subjects  of  such  recent  date,  all  the 
details  of  which  were  so  freshly  present  to  the  memory  of 
the  spectators.  Perhaps  we  ought,  therefore,  to  admire 
all  the  more  that  genius  which  could  trace  out  its  course 
through  this  chaos,  and  follow  up  in  this  labyrinth  a 
thread  which  is  never  broken  or  lost.  One  idea  domin- 
ates the  whole  drama,  and  that  is,  the  just  punishment 
of  the  crimes  which  stained  the  quarrels  of  York  and 
Lancaster  with  blood.  At  once  an  example  and  an  organ 
of  the  divine  wrath,  Margaret,  by  her  cries  of  agony,  in- 
cessantly invokes  vengeance  upon  those  who  have  commit- 
ted so  many  evil  deeds,  and  even  upon  those  who  have 
profited  by  them  ;  she  it  is  who  appears  to  them  when  this 
vengeance  has  fallen  upon  them  ;  her  name  is  mingled 
with  the  terror  of  their  last  moments  ;  and  they  believe 
they  fall  as  much  beneath  her  curse  as  under  the  blows 
of  Richard — the  sacrificial  priest  of  the  bloody  temple  of 
which  Margaret  is  the  sibyl,  and  who  will  himself  fall,  the 
last  victim  of  the  holocaust,  carrying  with  him  all  the 
crimes  he  has  avenged,  as  well  as  all  that  he  has  com- 
mitted. 

That  fatality  which,  in  "  Macbeth,"  is  revealed  in  the 
shape  of  the  witches,  and  in  "Richard  III."  in  the  person 
of  Margaret,  is  nevertheless  by  no  means  the  same  in 
both  dramas.  Macbeth,  drawn  aside  from  virtue  into 
crime,  presents  to  our  imagination  a  terrible  picture  of  the 
power  of  the  enemy  of  man — a  power  which  is,  however, 
subject  to  the  eternal  and  supreme  Master,  who  prepares 
its  punishment  with  the  same  stroke  which  effects  its 
overthrow.  Richard,  a  much  more  direct  and  voluntary 
agent  of  the  spirit  of  evil,  seems  rather  to  play  with  him 


KING  RICHARD  III.  337 

than  to  obey  him  ;  and  in  this  terrible  sport  of  the  infernal 
powers,  it  is,  as  it  were  en  passant,  that  the  justice  of 
Heaven  is  exercised,  until  the  final  moment  when  it  hursts 
forth  without  mitigation  upon  the  guilty  and  insolent 
wretch  who  fancied  he  was  braving  it,  while  he  was  work- 
ing out  its  designs. 

This  difference  in  the  progress  of  the  ideas  is  carried  out 
in  all  the  details  of  the  character  and  destiny  of  the  per- 
sonages. Macbeth,  when  once  fallen,  sustains  himself 
only  by  the  intoxicating  influence  of  the  blood  into  which 
he  plunges  deeper  and  deeper ;  and  he  reaches  his  term, 
fatigued  by  a  movement  so  alien  to  his  nature,  disabused 
with  regard  to  the  possessions  which  have  cost  him  so  dear, 
and  deriving  from  the  natural  elevation  of  his  character 
alone  the  force  to  defend  that  which  he  hardly  desires 
any  longer  to  preserve.  Richard,  as  inferior  to  Macbeth 
for  depth  of  feeling  as  he  is  superior  to  him  in  strength  of 
mind,  has  sought  in  crime  itself  the  pleasure  of  exercising 
his  stifled  faculties,  and  of  making  others  feel  a  superiority 
which  they  had  ignored  or  disdained.  He  deceives,  that 
he  may  at  once  succeed  and  deceive — that  he  may  subject 
men  to  himself,  and  give  himself  the  pleasure  of  despising 
them.  He  laughs  both  at  his  dupes  and  at  the  means 
which  he  has  employed  to  dupe  them ;  and  to  the  satis- 
faction which  he  feels  at  having  conquered  them  is  added 
that  of  having  acquired  a  proof  of  their  weakness.  His 
discoveries,  however,  are  not  yet  sufficient  to  satisfy  the 
tyranny  of  his  will ;  baseness  never  goes  quite  so  far  as  he 
intended,  and  as  he  found  it  necessary  to  suppose.  Com- 
pelled afterward  to  sacrifice  the  means  which  he  had  first 
corrupted,  he  is  incessantly  obliged  to  seduce  new  agents 
in  order  to  ruin  new  victims.     But  at  length  the  moment 

arrives  when  his  means  of  seduction  are  no  longer  suffi- 

P 


338  SHAKSPEARE'S  HISTORICAL  DRAMAS. 

cient  to  surmount  the  difficulties  which  he  has  created,  and 
when  the  bait  which  he  can  offer  to  the-passions  of  men  is 
no  longer  strong  enough  to  overcome  the  terror  with  which 
he  has  inspired  them  regarding  their  most  pressing  inter- 
ests ;  and  then  those  whom  he  had  divided,  in  order  to 
make  them  fall  by  means  of  one  another,  unite  against 
himself.  He  once  felt  himself  too  strong  for  each  of  them  ; 
he  is  now  alone  against  them  all,  and  he  has  ceased  to 
hope  for  himself;  he  does  himself  justice,  but  without 
abandoning  his  own  cause,  and  goes  to  wreck  upon  the 
obstacle  which  he  is  indignant  at  being  no  longer  able  to 
overcome. 

The  portraiture  of  such  a  personage,  and  of  the  passions 
which  he  can  bring  into  play  in  order  to  make  them  sub- 
serve his  interests,  presents  a  spectacle  which  is  all  the 
more  striking  because  we  clearly  see  that  Richard's  hy- 
pocrisy acts  only  upon  those  whose  interest  it  is  to  allow 
themselves  to  be  blinded  by  it.  The  people  remain  mute 
to  the  cowardly  appeals  by  which  they  are  invited  to  unite 
with  the  men  in  power,  who  are  about  to  give  their  voice 
in  favor  of  injustice  ;  or,  if  a  few  inferior  voices  be  raised, 
it  is  to  express  a  general  feeling  of  alienation  and  disqui- 
etude, and  to  disclose  the  existence  of  a  discontented  na- 
tion, side  by  side  with  a  servile  ^ourt.  The  expectations 
which  result  from  this  state  of  things,  the  pathos  of  sev- 
eral scenes,  the  sombre  energy  of  Margaret's  character, 
and  the  restless  curiosity  connected  with  projects  so  threat- 
ening in  their  nature  and  so  animated  in  their  conduct, 
unite  to  impart  to  this  work  an  interest  which  fully  ex> 
plains  the  constancy  of  its  success. 

The  style  of  "  Richard  III."  is  tolerably  simple,  and, 
with  the  exception  of  one  or  two  dialogues,  it  is  marked 
by  few  of  those  subtleties  which  sometimes  fatigue  us  even 


KING  RICHARD  III.  339 

in  Shakspearc's  finest  dramas.  In  the  part  of  Richard, 
one  of  the  wittiest  of  the  tragic  portion  of  the  play,  the 
wit  is  almost  entirely  exempt  from  refinement. 

This  drama  comprises  a  space  of  fourteen  years,  from 
1471  until  1485.  It  appears  to  have  teen  performed  in 
1597 ;  but  before  its  production  several  other  plays  had 
been  written  on  the  same  subject. 


KING  HENRY  VIII. 

(1601.) 


Although  Johnson  places  "  Henry  VIII."  in  the  second 
rank  of  Shakspeare's  historical  dramas,  with  "Richard 
III.,"  "  Richard  II,"  and  "  King  John,"  this  work  is  far 
from  approaching  in  merit  the  least  of  those  with  which 
the  critic  compares  it.  A  desire  to  please  Queen  Eliza- 
beth, or  perhaps  a  command  from  that  princess  that  he 
should  compose  a  drama  of  which  her  birth  should  in  some 
sort  constitute  the  subject,  could  not  supply  the  place  of 
that  liberty  which  is  the  soul  of  genius.  The  attempt  to 
introduce  Henry  VIII.  upon  the  stage  in  presence  of  his 
daughter,  and  of  a  daughter  whose  mother  he  had  put  to 
death,  presented  a  complication  of  difficulties  which  the 
poet  did  not  endeavor  to  surmount.  The  character  of 
Henry  is  completely  insignificant ;  but  it  is  somewhat  ex- 
traordinary to  notice  the  interest  with  which  the  poet  of 
Elizabeth  has  invested  Catharine  of  Aragon.  In  the  part 
of  "Wolsey,  especially  at  the  moment  of  his  downfall,  we 
may  discern  the  touch  of  the  great  master ;  but  it  appears 
that,  in  the  opinion  of  the  English,  the  great  merit  of  the 
work  consists  in  its  pomps  and  splendor,  which  have  led 
to  its  being  frequently  reproduced  upon  the  stage  on  occa- 
sions of  great  solemnity.  "  Henry  VIII."  has  for  us  a 
literary  interest,  on  account  of  its  style,  which  the  poet 


SHAKSPEARE'S  HISTORICAL  DRAMAS.  341 

has  certainly  been  careful  to  bring  into  conformity  with 
the  language  of  the  court,  as  spoken  in  his  own  time,  or  a 
few  years  previously.  In  no  other  of  his  works  is  the  style 
so  elliptical ;  the  habits  of  conversation  seem  to  introduce 
into  the  construction  of  its  sentences  that  economy  and 
abbreviation  which,  in  English  pronunciation,  deprivo 
words  of  nearly  half  their  syllables.  Moreover,  we  find 
in  it  scarcely  any  play  upon  words,  and,  excepting  only 
in  a  few  passages,  very  little  poetry. 

"  Henry  VIII."  was  performed,  it  is  believed,  in  1601, 
at  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  and  revived,  as  it 
would  appear,  after  her  death,  in  1613.  There  is  reason 
to  believe  that  the  panegyric  on  James  I.,  which  is  inserted 
at  the  end  of  the  prediction  concerning  Elizabeth,  was 
added  at  this  period,  either  by  Shakspeare  himself,  or  by 
Ben  Jonson,  to  whom  the  prologue  and  epilogue  are  pretty 
generally  attributed.  It  was,  it  is  believed,  at  this  revival, 
in  1613,  that  the  cannon  discharged  on  the  arrival  of  the 
king  at  "Wolsey's  palace  set  fire  to  the  Globe  Theatre, 
which  was  burned  to  the  ground. 

The  play  comprises  a  period  of  twelve  years,  from  1521 
until  1533.  Before  the  composition  of  Shakspeare's  drama, 
we  are  not  aware  of  the  existence  of  any  play  on  the  same 
subject. 


One  common  character  is  manifested  in  all  Shakspeare  s 
historical  dramas,  and  that  is,  the  profoundly  national  and 
popular  feeling  which  animates  the  poet.  Upon  the  events 
and  personages  which  he  represents,  he  thinks  and  feels 
like  his  audience,  like  the  simplest  and  most  ignorant  of 
his  audience ;  he  cares  neither  for  truth  nor  for  justice ; 
he  has  not  the  slightest  pretension  to  redress  errors  or  to 


34-2  SHAKSPEARE'S  HISTORICAL  DRAMAS. 

reprehend  public  passions ;  he  abandons  himself  without 
reserve  to  these  feelings,  for  he  shares  in  them,  and  reck- 
ons upon  them  for  his  success.  The  profound  and  sensi- 
ble moralist,  the  man  who  possesses  so  accurate  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  human  heart,  the  truthful  delineator  of  the 
most  varied  characters,  is  at  the  same  time  the  blindest 
and  most  passionate  of  English  patriots.  He  has  pene- 
trated, by  turns,  with  admirable  intelligence  and  inde- 
pendence, into  the  souls  of  Hamlet,  of  Romeo,  of  Macbeth, 
and  of  Othello ;  but  as  soon  as  he  approaches  the  history 
of  his  own  country  in  relation  to  that  of  other  lands,  all 
independence  and  impartiality  of  mind  abandon  him ;  in 
all  things  and  regarding  all  persons,  he  thinks  and  judges 
absolutely  like  John  Bull. 


THE  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE. 

(1598.) 


The  substance  of  the  adventure  which  constitutes  the 
subject  of"  The  Merchant  of  Venice"  will  be  found  in  the 
chronicles  or  literature  of  almost  every  country,  sometimes 
entire,  and  sometimes  unaccompanied  by  the  very  piquant 
episode  of  the  loves  of  Bassanio  and  Portia.  A  judgment 
similar  to  that  of  Portia  has  been  attributed  to  Pope  Sixtus 
V.,  who,  with  greater  severity,  condemned,  it  is  said,  both 
the  contractors  of  the  engagement  to  a  heavy  fine,  as  a 
punishment  for  the  immorality  of  their  contract.  On  this 
occasion,  the  subject  of  dispute  was  a  bet,  and  the  Jew 
was  the  loser.  A  collection  of  French  novels,  entitled 
"  Roger  Bontemps  en  belle  Humeur,"  relates  the  same 
story,  but  it  is  to  the  advantage  of  the  Christian,  and 
Sultan  Saladin  is  the  judge.  In  a  Persian  manuscript 
which  narrates  the  same  adventure,  a  rich  Jew  makes 
this  bargain  with  a  poor  Syrian  Mussulman,  in  order  to 
obtain  the  means  of  ruining  him,  and  thereby  succeeding 
in  gaining  possession  of  his  wife,  with  whom  he  is  vio- 
lently in  love :  this  case  is  decided  by  a  Cadi  of  Emesa. 
But  the  whole  story  is  related,  with  a  few  slight  differ- 
ences, in  a  very  old  work  written  in  Latin,  and  entitled 
"Gesta-Romanorum  ;"  as  well  as  in  the  "  Pecorone"  of 
Ser  G-iovanni,  a  collection  of  novels  composed  before  the 


344  SHAKSPEARE'S  COMEDIES. 

end  of  the  fourteenth  century,  and  therefore  long  anterior 
to  Sixtus  V.,  which  renders  the  anecdote  told  about  this 
Pope  by  Gregorio  Leti  extremely  improbable. 

In  the  novel  of  Ser  Giovanni,  the  lady  of  Belmont  is  not 
a  young  girl  forced  to  subject  her  choice  to  the  condition 
prescribed  by  the  singular  will  of  her  father,  but  a  young 
widow  who,  of  her  own  accord,  imposes  a  much  more  sin- 
gular condition  upon  those  whom  chance  or  choice  may 
bring  into  her  port.  Compelled  to  share  the  bed  of  the 
lady,  if  they  can  succeed  in  profiting  by  the  advantages  af- 
forded them  by  such  a  position,  they  will  obtain  possession 
of  the  widow's  person  and  property.  But  if  they  fail,  they 
lose  their  vessel  and  its  cargo,  and  are  sent  off  at  once 
with  a  horse  and  a  sufficient  sum  of  money  to  defray  their 
expenses  homeward.  Undeterred  by  this  test,  many  tried 
the  adventure,  but  all  failed ;  for  no  sooner  had  they  en- 
tered the  bed  than  they  fell  into  a  sound  sleep,  from  which 
they  only  awoke  on  the  following  morning  to  learn  that 
the  lady  had  already  unloaded  the  ship,  and  prepared  the 
horse  which  was  intended  to  convey  the  unlucky  aspirant 
home  again.  No  one  attempted  to  renew  so  costly  an  en- 
terprise, the  ill  success  of  which  discouraged  even  the 
boldest  of  adventurers.  Gianetto  alone  (such  is  the  name 
of  the  young  Venetian  in  the  novel)  persevered,  and  after 
two  failures  determined  to  risk  a  third  adventure.  His 
godfather  Ansaldo,  notwithstanding  the  loss  of  the  first 
two  vessels,  of  which  he  had  received  no  account,  equips 
for  him  a  third,  with  which  Gianetto  promises  amply  to 
repair  their  losses.  But,  exhausted  by  his  previous  under- 
takings, Ansaldo  is  obliged,  for  the  third  venture,  to  boirow 
the  sum  of  ten  thousand  ducats  from  a  Jew,  on  the  same 
conditions  as  those  which  Shylock  imposes  upon  Antonio. 
Gianetto  arrives  at  Belmont,  and,  being  warned  by  a  serv- 


THE  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE.  345 

ant  not  to  drink  the  wine  which  will  be  offered  him  be- 
fore going  to  bed,  at  last  surprises  the  lady,  who,  though 
at  first  greatly  disconcerted  at  finding  him  awake,  never- 
theless resigns  herself  to  her  fate,  and  thinks  herself  happy 
to  proclaim  him  her  husband  on  the  following  day.  Gi- 
anetto,  intoxicated  with  his  happiness,  forgets  poor  An- 
saldo  until  the  fatal  day  when  the  bond  becomes  due. 
He  then  recollects  the  circumstance  by  chance,  hastens 
to  Venice,  and  the  rest  of  the  story  occurs  as  Shakspeare 
has  related  it. 

It  is  easy  to  perceive  the  reason  and  necessity  of  the 
various  changes  which  he  has  introduced  into  this  adven- 
ture. It  was  not,  however,  so  impossible  of  representation 
upon  the  stage,  in  his  time,  as  not  to  authorize  us  to  sup- 
pose that  he  was  induced  to  make  these  changes  by  a  de- 
sire to  impart  greater  morality  to  his  personages,  and 
greater  interest  to  the  action.  Thus  the  position  of  the 
generous  Antonio,  and  the  delineation  of  his  character, 
at  once  so  devoted,  courageous,  and  melancholy,  are  not 
the  only  source  of  the  charm  which  reigns  so  powerfully 
throughout  the  work.  The  gaps  which  this  position  leaves 
are,  at  ail  events,  so  happily  filled  up  that  we  can  perceive 
no  void,  so  pleasantly  is  the  soul  occupied  with  the  feelings 
which  naturally  arise  from  it.  It  seems  as  though  Shaks- 
peare were  desirous  here  to  describe  the  first  delightful 
days  of  a  happy  marriage  beneath  their  different  points 
of  view.  The  speech  of  Portia  to  Bassanio,  at  the  moment 
when  fate  has  just  decided  in  his  favor,  and  when  she  al- 
ready regards  herself  as  his  happy  spouse,  is  full  of  such 
pure  abandonment,  and  of  conjugal  submission  at  once  so 
touching  and  so  noble,  that  her  character  derives  from  it 
an  inexpressible  charm;  and  Bassanio,  assuming  from  that 
instant  the  superior  rank  which  befits  him,  no  longer  lias 


346  SHAKSPEARE'S  COMEDIES. 

to  fear  that  he  will  he  degraded  "by  the  spirit  and  courage 
of  his  wife,  although  the  part  which  she  takes  the  moment 
afterward  is  so  decided.  We  know  that  now  the  moment 
of  necessity  is  past,  every  thing  falls  into  its  proper  order, 
and  that  the  high  qualities  which  she  will  subject  to  her 
duty  as  a  wife  will  only  add  to  the  happiness  of  her  hus- 
band. 

In  a  subordinate  class,  Lorenzo  and  Jessica  afford  a 
pleasing  exhibition  of  the  tender  jocoseness  of  two  young 
married  people,  who  are  so  filled  with  their  happiness  that 
they  diffuse  it  over  objects  most  foreign  to  themselves,  and 
enjoy  the  most  indifferent  thoughts  and  actions  as  if  they 
were  so  many  portions  of  an  existence  entirely  pervaded 
by  happiness.  The  conversation  between  Lorenzo  and 
Jessica,  the  garden,  the  moonlight,  the  music  which  wel- 
comes the  return  of  Portia  and  Bassanio,  and  the  arrival 
of  Antonio,  dispose  the  soul  to  all  the  sweet  impressions 
which  will  be  occasioned  by  the  image  of  complete  felicity, 
in  the  union  of  Portia  and  Bassanio  in  the  midst  of  all  the 
friends  who  are  about  to  enjoy  their  cares  and  benefac- 
tions. Shakspeare  is  almost  the  only  dramatic  poet  who 
has  not  feared  to  dwell  upon  the  picture  of  happiness  ;  but 
he  felt  he  had  the  means  of  filling  it. 

The  invention  of  the  three  coffers,  the  original  of  which 
also  occurs  in  many  places,  is  to  be  found,  in  almost  the 
same  shape  as  that  which  Shakspeare  has  used,  in  another 
adventure  of  the  "  Gresta  Romanorum,"  excepting  only 
that  the  person  subjected  to  the  trial  is  the  daughter  of  a 
king  of  Apulia,  who,  from  the  wisdom  of  her  choice,  is 
deemed  worthy  to  espouse  the  son  of  the  Emperor  of  Rome. 
It  will  be  seen  from  that  circumstance  that  these  "  Gresta 
Romanorum"  do  not  precisely  extend  so  far  back  as  the 
ages  of  historical  antiquity. 


THE   MERCHANT  OF  VENICE.  347 

The  character  of  the  Jew,  Shylock,  is  justly  celebrated 
in  England. 

This  drama  was  performed  before  the  year  1598 ;  but 
we  possess  no  certain  information  regarding  its  date.  Sev- 
eral plays  on  the  same  subject  had  previously  been  brought 
on  the  stage ;  and  it  had  also  formed  the  substance  of  a 
number  of  ballads. 

In  1701,  Mr.  Granville,  afterward  Marquis  of  Lans- 
dovvne,  restored  "  The  Merchant  of  Venice"  to  the  stage, 
with  numerous  alterations,  under  the  title  of  "  The  Jew 
of  Yenice."  It  was  performed  for  a  long  time  under  this 
new  form. 


THE  MERRY  WIVES  OF  WINDSOR. 

(1601.) 


According  to  a  generally  received  tradition,  the  comedy 
of  "  The  Merry  Wives  of  "Windsor"  was  composed  by  or- 
der of  Queen  Elizabeth,  who,  having  been  greatly  de- 
lighted with  Falstaff,  desired  to  see  him  once  again  on  the 
stage.  Shakspeare  had  promised  that  Falstaff  should  die 
in  "  Henry  V.,"*  but  doubtless,  after  having  introduced 
him  once  again,  feeling  embarrassed  by  the  difficulty  of 
establishing  new  relations  between  Falstaff  and  Henry 
when  the  latter  had  become  king,  he  satisfied  himself  with 
announcing,  at  the  opening  of  the  piece,  the  sickness  and 
death  of  Falstaff,  without  presenting  him  afresh  to  the 
eyes  of  the  public.  Elizabeth  was  of  opinion  that  this 
was  a  breach  of  faith,  and  required  a  new  description  of 
the  life  of  the  fat  knight.  It  therefore  appears  that  "  The 
Merry  Wives  of  Windsor"  was  composed  after  "  Henry 
V.,"  although  in  historical  order  it  ought  to  take  prece- 
dence. Some  commentators  have  even  held,  in  opposition 
to  Johnson's  opinion,  that  this  drama  should  be  placed  be- 
tween the  two  parts  of  "  Henry  IV. ;"  but  there  appears  to 
be  in  favor  of  Johnson's  opinion,  which  places  it  between 
"  Henry  IV."  and  "  Henry  V.,"  one  conclusive  reason, 
and  that  is,  that  according  to  the  other  supposition,  the 

*  See  the  Epilogue  nf  the  Second  Pari  of  "Henry  IV." 


THE   MERRY  WIVES  OF  WINDSOR.  349 

unity,  if  not  of  character,  at  least  of  impression  and  effect, 
would  be  entirely  destroyed. 

The  two  parts  of  "  Henry  IV."  were  composed  at  a  sin- 
gle effort,  or,  at  least,  without  wandering  from  the  same 
train  of  ideas ;  not  only  is  the  FalstafF  of  the  Second  Part 
precisely  the  same  man  as  the  Falstaff  of  the  First  Part, 
but  he  is  presented  under  the  same  aspect ;  and  if,  in  this 
Second  Part,  Falstaff  is  not  quite  so  amusing,  because  he 
has  made  his  fortune,  and  because  his  wit  is  no  longer 
employed  in  incessantly  extricating  him  from  the  ridicu- 
lous embarrassments  into  which  he  is  thrown  by  the  as- 
sertion of  pretensions  so  utterly  at  variance  with  his  tastes 
and  habits,  he  is,  nevertheless,  brought  upon  the  stage 
with  the  same  class  of  tastes  and  habits.  He  brings  his 
influence  with  Henry  to  bear  upon  Justice  Shallow,  just 
as  he  used  to  boast,  among  his  confidants,  of  the  freedom 
with  which  he  treated  the  prince  ;  and  the  public  affront 
which  serves  as  his  punishment  at  the  end  of  the  Second 
Part  of  "  Henry  IV."  is  only  the  consequence  and  com- 
plement of  the  private  affronts  which  Henry  V.,  when 
Prince  of  Wales,  had  amused  himself  by  putting  upon  him 
during  the  course  of  the  two  plays.  In  a  word,  the  action 
which  is  begun  between  Falstaff  and  the  prince,  in  the 
First  Part,  is  followed  up  without  interruption  in  the  Second 
Part,  and  then  terminated  as  it  necessarily  was  destined 
to  finish,  and  as  he  had  announced  that  it  would  finish. 

"The  Merry  "Wives  of  Windsor"  presents  a  different  ac- 
tion, and  exhibits  Falstaff  in  another  position,  and  under 
another  point  of  view.  He  is,  indeed,  the  same  man ;  it 
would  be  impossible  to  mistake  him  ;  bat  he  has  grown 
older,  and  plunged  deeper  into  his  material  tastes,  and  is 
solely  occupied  in  satisfying  the  wants  of  his  gluttony 
Doll  Tear-Sheet,  at  least,  still  abused  his  imagination,  for 


850  SHAKSPEARE'S  COMEDIES. 

with  her  he  thought  himself  a  libertine ;  but  here  he  haa 
no  such  thought ;  he  is  anxious  to  make  the  insolence  of 
his  gallantries  serve  to  supply  him  with  money ;  and  his 
vanity  still  deceives  him  with  regard  to  the  means  of  ob- 
taining this  money.  Elizabeth,  it  is  said,  had  desired 
Shakspeare  to  describe  FalstafT  in  love ;  but  Shakspeare, 
who  was  better  acquainted  with  the  personages  of  his  own 
conception,  felt  that  this  kind  of  ridiculousness  was  not 
suited  to  such  a  character,  and  that  it  was  necessary  to 
punish  FalstafT  in  a  more  sensitive  point.  Even  his  vanity 
would  not  be  sufficient  for  this  purpose  ;  for  FalstafT  could 
derive  advantage  from  every  disgrace  in  which  he  was 
involved ;  and  he  had  now  reached  such  a  point  as  no 
longer  even  to  seek  to  dissemble  his  shame.  The  liveli- 
ness with  which  he  describes  to  Mr.  Brook  his  sufferings 
in  the  basket  of  dirty  linen  is  no  longer  the  vivacity  of 
FalstafT  relating  his  exploits  against  the  robbers  of  Gads- 
hill,  and  afterward  getting  out  of  the  scrape  so  pleasantly 
when  his  falsehood  is  brought  home  to  him.  The  neces- 
sity for  boasting  of  himself  is  no  longer  one  of  his  chief 
necessities  ;  he  wants  money,  money  above  all  things,  and 
he  will  be  suitably  chastised  only  by  inconveniences  as 
real  as  the  advantages  which  he  promises  himself.  Thus 
the  buck-basket  and  the  blows  of  Mr.  Ford  are  perfectly 
adapted  to  the  kind  of  pretensions  which  draw  upon  Fal- 
stafT such  a  correction ;  but  although  such  an  adventure 
may,  without  any  difficulty,  be  adapted  to  the  FalstafT  of 
"  Henry  IV.,"  it  applies  to  him  in  another  part  of  his  life 
and  character;  and  if  it  were  introduced  between  the  two 
parts  of  the  action  which  is  continued  in  the  two  parts  of 
"  Henry  IV.,"  it  would  chill  the  imagination  of  the  spec- 
tator to  such  a  degree  as  entirely  to  destroy  the  effect  of 
the  second  part. 


THE  MERRY  WIVES  OF  WINDSOR.  351 

Although  this  reason  may  appear  sufficient,  we  might 
adduce  many  others  in  justification  of  Johnson's  opinion. 
They  must  not,  however,  be  sought  for  in  chronology.  It 
would  be  an  impracticable  work  to  endeavor  to  harmo- 
nize the  different  chronological  data  which  Shakspeare  is 
pleased  to  establish,  often  in  the  same  piece  ;  and  it  is  as 
impossible  to  find,  chronologically,  the  place  of  "  The  Mer- 
ry Wives  of  Windsor"  between  "Henry  IV."  and  "Henry 
V.,"  as  between  the  two  parts  of  "Henry  IV."  But, 
adopting  this  last  supposition,  the  interview  between  Shal- 
low and  Falstaff  in  the  Second  Part  of  "  Henry  IV.,"  the 
pleasure  which  Shallow  feels  at  seeing  Falstaff  again,  after 
so  long  a  separation,  and  the  respect  which  he  professes 
for  him,  and  which  he  carries  so  far  as  to  lend  him  a 
thousand  pounds,  become  shocking  improbabilities  ;  for, 
after  the  comedy  of  "  The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,"  Shal- 
low can  not  be  caught  by  Falstaff.  Nym,  whom  we  find 
in  "  Henry  V."  is  not  numbered  among  Shakspeare's  fol- 
lowers in  the  Second  Part  of  "  Henry  IV."  With  either 
supposition,  it  would  be  somewhat  difficult  to  account  for 
the  personage  Quickly,  if  we  did  not  suppose  that  it  re- 
ferred to  another  Quickly  —  a  name  which  Shakspeare 
found  it  convenient  to  render  common  to  all  procuresses. 
The  Quickly  of  "Henry  IV."  is  married,  and  her  name  is 
therefore  not  that  of  a  girl ;  but  the  Quickly  of  "  The 
Merry  Wives  of  Windsor"  is  not  married. 

After  all,  it  would  be  superfluous  to  seek  to  establish  in 
a  very  accurate  manner  the  historical  order  of  these  three 
dramas;  Shakspeare  himself  did  not  bestow  a  thought 
upon  the  matter.  We  may,  however,  believe  that,  from 
the  uncertainty  in  which  he  has  left  the  whole  affair,  he 
was  at  least  desirous  that  it  should  not  be  altogether  im- 
possible to  make  "  The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor"  the  con- 


352  SHAKSPEARE'S  COMEDIES. 

tinuation  of  "  Henry  IV."  Hurried,  as  it  would  appear, 
by  the  orders  of  Elizabeth,  he  at  first  produced  only  a  kind 
of  sketch  of  this  comedy,  which  was  nevertheless  acted 
for  a  considerable  period,  as  we  find  it  printed  in  the  first 
editions  of  his  works ;  and  it  was  not  until  several  years 
afterward  that  he  arranged  it  in  the  form  in  which  we 
now  possess  it.  In  this  early  play,  FalstafT,  at  the  mo- 
ment when  he  is  in  the  forest,  alarmed  by  the  noises  which 
he  hears  on  every  side,  inquires  if  it  is  not  "  the  mad 
Prince  of  Wales  stealing  his  father's  deer."  This  suppo- 
sition is  suppressed  in  the  revised  copy  of  the  comedy,  in 
which  the  poet  apparently  wished  to  endeavor  to  indicate 
a  rather  more  probable  order  of  facts.  In  the  piece  as  we 
now  possess  it,  Page  reproaches  Fenton  with  "  having 
been  of  the  company"  of  the  Prince  of  "Wales  and  of  Poins.' 
At  all  events,  he  no  longer  belongs  to  it ;  and  we  may 
suppose  that  the  name  of  "wild  prince"  was  still  retained 
to  show  what  the  Prince  of  Wales  had  been,  and  what 
Henry  V.  no  longer  was.  However  this  may  be,  although 
"The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor"  may  present  a  less  ex- 
alted kind  of  comicality  than  the  First  Part  of  "  Henry 
IV.,"  it  is,  nevertheless,  one  of  the  most  diverting  produc- 
tions of  that  gayety  of  mind  which  Shakspeare  has  dis- 
played in  several  of  his  comedies. 

A  number  of  novels  may  contest  the  honor  of  having 
furnished  Shakspeare  with  the  substance  of  the  adventure 
upon  which  he  has  based  the  plot  of  the  "Merry  Wives 
Df  Windsor."  It  was  probably  from  the  same  sources  that 
Moliere  borrowed  the  idea  of  his  "  Ecole  des  Femmes." 
Shakspeare's  own  invention  consists  in  having  made  the 
same  intrigue  serve  to  punish  both  the  jealous  husband 
and  the  insolent  lover.  He  has  thus  imparted  to  the 
drama,  with  the  exception  of  the  license  of  a  few  ex  pros- 


THE  MERRY  WIVES  OF  WINDSOR.  '    353 

sions,  a  much  more  moral  tone  than  that  of  the  novels 
from  which  he  may  have  derived  his  subject,  and  in  which 
the  husband  always  ends  by  being  duped,  while  the  lover 
is  made  happy. 

This  comedy  appears  to  have  been  composed  in  1601. 


THE  TEMPEST. 

(1611.) 


"  "Whether  this  be  or  be  not,  I'll  not  swear,"  says  old 
Gonzalo,  at  the  conclusion  of  the  "  Tempest,"  when  ut- 
terly confounded  by  the  marvels  which  have  surrounded 
him  ever  since  his  arrival  on  the  island.  It  seems  as 
though,  through  the  mouth  of  the  honest  man  of  the  drama, 
Shakspeare  desired  to  express  the  general  effect  of  this 
charming  and  singular  work.  As  brilliant,  light,  and 
transparent  as  the  aerial  beings  with  which  it  is  filled,  it 
scarcely  allows  itself  to  be  apprehended  by  reflection  ;  and 
hardly,  through  its  changeful  and  diaphanous  features, 
can  we  feel  certain  that  we  perceive  a  subject,  a  dramatic 
contexture,  and  real  adventures,  feelings,  and  personages. 
Nevertheless,  it  contains  all  these,  and  all  these  are  re- 
vealed in  it ;  and,  in  rapid  succession,  each  object  in  its 
turn  moves  the  imagination,  occupies  the  attention,  and 
disappears,  leaving  no  trace  behind  but  a  confused  emo- 
tion of  pleasure  and  an  impression  of  truth,  to  which  we 
dare  not  either  refuse  or  grant  our  belief. 

"  This  drama,"  says  "Warburton,  "  is  one  of  the  noblest 
efforts  of  that  sublime  and  amazing  imagination,  peculiar 
to  Shakspeare,  which  soars  above  the  bounds  of  nature, 
without  forsaking  sense  ;  or,  more  properly,  carries  nature 
along  with  him  beyond  her  established  limits."     Every 


THE  TEMPEST.  355 

thing  is,  in  this  picture,  at  once  fantastic  and  true.  As 
if  he  were  the  creator  of  the  work,  as  if  he  were  the  true 
enchanter,  surrounded  by  all  the  illusions  of  his  art,  Pros- 
pero,  manifesting  himself  to  us,  seems  the  only  opaque  and 
solid  body  in  the  midst  of  a  populace  of  airy  phantoms 
clothed  with  the  forms  of  life,  but  unpossessed  of  the  ap- 
pearances of  duration.  A  few  minutes  scarcely  elapse  be- 
fore the  amiable  Ariel,  lighter  even  than  when  he  comes 
with  the  quickness  of  thought,  escapes  from  the  contact 
of  the  magic  wand,  and,  freed  from  the  forms  which  are 
prescribed  to  him — free,  in  fact,  from  all  sensible  form,  dis- 
solves into  thin  air,  in  which  his  individual  existence,  as 
far  as  we  are  concerned,  vanishes  away.  Is  not  that  half- 
intelligence,  which  seems  to  glimmer  in  the  monster  Cal- 
iban, an  effect  of  magic  ?  and  does  it  not  seem  that,  on 
setting  foot  out  of  the  disenchanted  isle  in  which  he  is 
about  to  be  left  to  himself,  we  shall  see  him  relapse  into 
his  natural  state  of  an  inert  mass,  assimilating  itself  by 
degrees  to  the  earth,  from  which  it  is  scarcely  distinct  ? 
When  far  from  our  view,  what  will  become  of  that  Anto- 
nio and  that  Sebastian,  who  were  so  ready  to  conceive  plans 
of  crime,  and  of  that  Alonzo,  who  was  so  easily  and  frivo- 
lously accessible  to  feelings  of  every  kind  ?  "What  will  be- 
come of  the  young  lovers,  so  quickly  and  so  completely 
enamored  of  each  other,  and  who,  in  our  view,  seem  to 
have  been  created  only  that  they  might  love,  and  to  have 
no  other  object  in  life  than  to  disclose  to  our  view  the  de- 
lightful pictures  of  love  and  innocence  ?  Each  of  these 
personages  displays  to  us  only  that  portion  of  his>  existence 
which  concerns  his  present  position  ;  none  of  them  reveals 
to  us  in  himself  those  abysses  of  nature,  or  those  deep 
sources  of  thought  into  which  Shakspeare  descends  so  fre- 
quently and  so  thoroughly  ;  but  they  manifest  before  our 


3*1  SHAKSPEARE'S  COMEDIES. 

ey©3  all  the  outward  effects  of  these  inward  feelings ;  we 
do  not  know  whence  they  come,  but  we  recognize  perfectly 
well  what  they  seem  to  be — true  visions  of  which  we  can 
discern  neither  the  flesh  nor  the  bones,  but  the  forms  of 
which  are  distinct  and  familiar  to  us. 

Thus,  by  the  suppleness  and  lightness  of  their  nature, 
these  singular  creatures  conduce  to  a  rapidity  of  action 
and  a  variety  of  movement,  unexampled,  perhaps,  in  any 
other  of  Shakspeare's  dramas.  None  of  his  other  plays  are 
more  amusing  or  more  animated  than  this,  and  in  none  is 
a  lively,  and  even  waggish,  gayety  more  naturally  con- 
joined with  serious  interests,  melancholy  feelings,  and 
touching  affections.  It  is  a  fairy  tale  in  all  the  force  of 
the  term,  and  in  all  the  vivacity  of  the  impressions  which 
such  a  tale  can  impart. 

The  style  of  the  "  Tempest"  shares  in  this  kind  of 
magic.  Figurative  and  aerial,  bringing  before  the  mind 
a  host  of  images  and  impressions  as  vague  and  fugitive  as 
those  uncertain  forms  which  are  depicted  in  the  clouds,  it 
moves  the  imagination  without  riveting  it,  and  maintains 
it  in  a  state  of  undecided  excitement,  which  renders  it  ac- 
cessible to  all  the  spells  under  which  the  enchanter  desires 
to  place  it.  It  is  a  tradition  in  England,  that  the  celebra- 
ted Lord  Falkland,*  Mr.  Selden,  and  Lord  Chief-justice 
Vaughan,  regarded  the  style  of  the  part  of  Caliban,  in  the 

*  The  most  virtuous,  amiable,  and  erudite  man  in  England,  during  the 
reign  of  Charles  I.,  of  whom  Lord  Clarendon  has  said  that  "if  there  were 
no  other  brand  upon  the  Civil  War  than  his  single  loss,  it  must  be  most  in- 
famous and  execrable  to  all  posterity."  After  having  boldly  maintained 
the  liberties  of  his  country  against  Charles  I.  in  Parliament,  he  joined  the 
cause  of  that  prince  as  soon  as  it  became  the  cause  of  justice  ;  and  having 
been  made  a  minister  of  Charles,  he  died  at  the  battle  of  Newbury,  in  de- 
spair at  the  misfortunes  which  he  foresaw ;  he  was  then  thirty-three  yeara 
of  age. 


THE  TEMPEST.  357 

"  Tempest,"  as  quite  peculiar  to  that  personage,  and  as 
one  of  Shakspeare's  own  creations.  Johnson  is  of  a  con- 
trary opinion ;  but,  supposing  the  tradition  to  be  authentic, 
the  authority  of  Johnson  would  not  be  sufficient  to  inval- 
idate that  of  Lord  Falkland,  a  man  of  eminently  elegant 
mind,  and  who  was  remarkable,  as  it  would  appear,  for  a 
delicacy  of  tact,  which,  in  criticism  at  least,  was  often 
wanting  in  the  Doctor.  Besides,  Lord  Falkland,  who  was 
almost  a  contemporary  of  Shakspeare,  as  he  was  born  sev- 
eral years  before  the  death  of  the  poet,  would  be  entitled 
to  be  believed  in  preference  regarding  shades  of  language 
which,  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  later,  were  naturally 
merged  by  Johnson  under  a  general  color  of  oldness.  If, 
therefore,  we  had  any  right  to  decide  between  them,  we 
should  be  rather  disposed  to  adhere  to  the  opinion  of  Lord 
Falkland,  and  even  to  apply  to  the  whole  work  what  he 
has  said  regarding  the  part  of  Caliban  alone.  At  all  events, 
we  may  remark,  that  the  style  of  the  "  Tempest"  appears, 
more  than  any  other  of  Shakspeare's  works,  to  differ  from 
that  general  type  of  expression  of  thought  which  is  found 
and  maintained  more  or  less  every  where,  in  spite  of  the 
difference  of  idioms.  We  must  probably  ascribe  this  fact 
partly  to  the  singularity  of  the  position,  and  to  the  neces- 
sity for  bringing  into  harmony  so  many  different  conditions, 
feelings,  and  interests,  which,  for  a  few  hours,  are  involved 
in  a  common  fate,  and  surrounded  by  the  same  supernat- 
ural atmosphere.  In  none  of  his  other  works,  moreover, 
has  Shakspeare  been  so  sparing  of  plays  upon  words. 

It  would  be  somewhat  difficult  to  determine  with  pre- 
cision to  what  species  of  the  marvelous  that  which  Shaks- 
peare has  employed  in  the  "  Tempest"  belongs.  Ariel  is 
a  true  sylph ;  but  the  sprites  which  Frospero  subjects  to 
him,  fairies,  imps,  and  goblins,  belong  to  the  popular  su- 


358  SHAKSPEARE'S  COMEDIES. 

perstitions  of  the  North.  Caliban  is  akin  at  once  to  the 
gnome  and  the  demon ;  his  brute  existence  is  animated 
only  by  an  infernal  malice  ;  and  the  "  Oho  !  Oho  !"  with 
which  he  answers  Prospero,  when  he  charges  him  with 
having  attempted  to  dishonor  his  daughter,  was  the  ex- 
clamation, and  probably  the  kind  of  chuckle,  ascribed,  in 
England,  to  the  Devil,  in  the  old  Mysteries  in  which  he 
played  a  part.  Setebos,  whom  the  monster  invokes  as  the 
god,  and  perhaps  as  the  husband,  of  his  mother,  was  held 
to  be  the  devil  or  god  of  the  Patagonians,  who  represented 
him,  it  was  said,  with  horns  growing  out  of  his  head  We 
can  not  exactly  picture  to  ourselves  the  manner  in  which 
this  Caliban  must  have  been  formed,  so  as  to  account  for 
his  being  so  frequently  taken  for  a  fish ;  it  appears  that 
he  was  represented  with  his  arms  and  legs  covered  with 
scales  ;  but  it  seems  to  me  that  a  fish's  head,  or  something 
like  it,  would  be  necessary  to  impart  any  probability  to 
the  mistakes  of  which  he  is  the  object.  But  Shakspeare 
may  very  probably  not  have  looked  so  closely  into  the 
matter,  and  may  have  troubled  himself  but  little  to  ob- 
tain an  exact  idea  of  the  form  suited  to  his  monster.  He 
played  with  his  subject,  and  allowed  it  to  flow  from  his 
brilliant  imagination  clothed  with  all  the  poetic  tints  which 
it  received  while  passing  through  his  brain.  The  light- 
ness of  his  labor  is  sufficiently  observable  from  the  various 
inadvertences  which  have  escaped  from  him ;  as,  for  ex- 
ample, when  he  makes  Ferdinand  say  that  the  Duke  of 
Milan  "  and  his  brave  son"  have  perished  in  the  storm,  al- 
though nothing  whatever  is  said  about  this  son  in  the  re- 
mainder of  the  drama,  and  there  is  nothing  to  lead  us  to 
suppose  that  he  is  in  existence  upon  the  island,  although 
Ariel,  who  assures  Prospero  that  no  one  has  perished,  has 
only  confined  the  crew  under  the  hatches. 


THE  TEMPEST.  359 

The  "  Tempest"  is  a  drama  tolerably  regular  as  regards 
the  unities,  since  the  storm  which  swamps  the  vessel  in 
the  first  scene  occurs  within  view  of  the  island,  and  the 
entire  action  does  not  embrace  an  interval  ol  more  than 
three  hours.  Some  commentators  have  thought  that  Shaks- 
peare  might  have  intended  to  reply,  by  this  specimen  of 
what  he  was  able  to  do,  to  Ben  Jonson's  continual  criti- 
cisms upon  the  irregularity  of  his  works.  Dr.  Johnson  is 
of  an  opposite  opinion,  and  regards  this  circumstance  as 
an  effect  of  chance  and  the  natural  result  of  the  subject ; 
but  there  is  one  thing  that  might  give  us  reason  to  believe 
that  Shakspeare,  at  least,  intended  to  avail  himself  of  this 
advantage,  and  that  is,  the  care  with  which  the  different 
personages,  even  including  the  boatswain,  who  has  slept 
during  the  whole  of  the  action,  mark  the  time  which  has 
elapsed  since  the  beginning  of  the  play.  More  than  this  ; 
when  Ariel  informs  Prospero  that  they  are  drawing  near 
the  sixth  hour,  the  hour  in  which  his  master  had  prom- 
ised him  that  their  labors  should  cease,  Prospero  replies  : 

"  I  did  say  so,  when  first  I  raised  the  tempest." 

This  remark  would  even  seem  to  indicate  an  intention 
which  the  poet  desired  should  be  perceived. 

It  is  not  known  from  what  sources  Shakspeare  derived 
the  subject  of  the  "  Tempest ;"  but  it  appears  sufficiently 
certain  that  he  borrowed  it  from  some  Italian  novel,  which 
it  has  hitherto  been  impossible  to  discover. 

Malone's  chronology  places  the  composition  of  the  "  Tem- 
pest" in  the  year  1612,  which  conjecture^  however,  agrees 
ill  with  another  supposition  equally  probable.  While  read- 
ing the  Masque  performed  before  Ferdinand  and  Miranda, 
it  is  impossible  not  to  be  struck  with  the  idea  that  the 
"  Tempest"  was  first  composed  to  be  performed  on  the  oc« 


360  SHAKSPEARE'S  COMEDIES. 

casion  of  some  marriage  festival ;  and  the  lightness  of  the 
subject,  as  well  as  the  brilliant  carelessness  which  is  re- 
markable in  the  composition,  seem  entirely  to  confirm  thia 
conj  ecture.  Mr.  Holt,  one  of  the  commentators  upon  Shaks- 
peare,  has  supposed  that  the  marriage  upon  which  Shaks  • 
peare  has  poured  so  many  blessings,  through  the  mouths 
of  Juno  and  Ceres,  might  very  probably  be  that  of  the 
Earl  of  Essex,  who  married  Lady  Frances  Howard  in  1611, 
or  rather  terminated  in  that  year  his  marriage,  which  had 
been  contracted  ever  since  1606,  but  the  consummation 
of  which  had  been  delayed  by  the  travels  of  the  earl,  and 
probably  by  the  youth  of  the  contracting  parties.  This 
last  circumstance  appears  even  to  be  indicated  with  con- 
siderable clearness  in  the  scene  in  which  great  stress  is 
laid  upon  the  continence  which  the  young  lovers  have 
promised  to  observe  until  the  complete  accomplishment  of 
all  the  necessary  ceremonies.  "Would  it  not  also  be  possi- 
ble to  suppose  that  this  piece,  though  composed  in  1611 
for  the  nuptials  of  the  Earl  of  Essex,  was  not  performed 
in  London  until  the  following  year  ? 

RA- 
TUB    E3D. 

v 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

RENEWALS  ONLY — TEL.  NO.  642-3405 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


ftfc.Cfc.-j iVtTD 


r  - 


31 


12 '68 -5  *W 


Loan  dept. 


MAY  2  1 1975- 


fe-fr 


RtC 


C\R-  M«l*"& 


JUN  2  0  1979 


{EC.  CIR.     jun  2  2    1971 


EEB    9 1984 


MAR  2  B^,m 


LD  21A-38wi-5,'68 
(J401slO)476B 


General  Library  \L— — 

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